Scottish Parliament Project: Communication, Conflict, and Negotiation

This report provides a detailed analysis of the Scottish Parliament Project, focusing on the strained relationship between the project sponsor and the former project manager due to poor communication. The report explores the emergence of conflict, stages of conflict, and various types of conflicts. It examines the importance of effective communication and negotiation strategies between key stakeholders. The study identifies issues such as lack of construction knowledge, poor planning, and budget overruns. The report also discusses negotiation between Paul Curran and the project sponsor, highlighting the significance of communication in resolving conflicts and ensuring project success. The conclusion emphasizes the need for efficient communication and negotiation to manage project conflicts and meet customer requirements. The report references various scholarly articles to support its findings.

Running head: SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT PROJECT
Scottish Parliament Project
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Analyze strained relationship between the Project Sponsor and the former project manager...2
Literature on emergence of conflict...........................................................................................3
Negotiation between Paul Curran and project sponsor..............................................................5
Negotiation.................................................................................................................................6
Identification of issues and justification of decisions............................................................6
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................7
References..................................................................................................................................8

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Introduction
The report is reflected on case study of Scottish Parliament Project to examine how a
poor plan communication weakens achievement of a public sector project. The study
establishes an importance of the communication to support large as well as complex project
from the structural perspectives. The main objective of this paper is to determine effect of the
project manager as well as project sponsor relationships due to poor communication (Dainty,
Moore and Murray 2006). Interaction between two key people in the project is considered as
main attributes to Scottish Parliament Project success and failure.
The report is mainly focused on managing project conflicts as well as efficient
negotiation. A literature study is also conducted on conflicts, stages, various types of
conflicts, and a background of conflict is also provided. Due to communication problems,
issues are raised in the project may lead to project failure. Therefore, there is discussion of
possible negotiation issues and justifications of decisions to identify the issues.
Analyze strained relationship between the Project Sponsor and the former
project manager
Mr Armstrong was the former project manager and Mrs Doig was being selected as
the project sponsor of parliament buildings in the year 1998. Mrs Doig was not assumed
active responsibilities of sponsor for Holyrood till time of the successful declaration of the
design team. There is strained connection between Project Sponsor in addition to earlier
project manager owing to the fact that Mrs Doig had lack of expertise in matters of project as
well as construction. It leads to lot of poor decisions to adopt the construction management as
parliament building project (Fraser 2004). Lack of construction knowledge of the project
sponsor lead to increase in project cost while most important is the construction stage
(Makins 2011). Increase into the cost of construction caused due to lack of design

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development as well as delay in construction stages. Most of increase in construction cost
caused from 2000, due to result in poor construction planning as well as management
attributed at development phase.
Due to high increase in construction cost, Mr Armstrong reported Mrs Doig about
lack of information produced to get a valid cost plan. It is indicated that budget of the project
is approximately £50m will go above by significant sum of cost. The project has lack of
planning, which made the budget to be exceed from its estimated value. There are various
complexities in designing variations and lack of communication cause the project to be
delayed of 20 months. After the time of resignation, based on experience of working of Mr
Armstrong, it was seen that he was not provided with proper support in his work to perform
work of the project manager, and even his advices were not attended by anyone. It lead to
stressed relationship between manager besides sponsor.
Literature on emergence of conflict
Honeyman, Kaufman and Schneider (2017) mentioned that the conflict is a
disagreement and argument between two or more than two opposing forces. The conflict is
provided tension and is used as drive to narrative forward. According to Artto, Ahola and
Vartiainen (2016), there are five stages of conflict, which summarized as below:
Latent conflict: Mayer (2018) discussed that the first stage of conflict is the latent
conflict, where the factors cause conflict are autonomy, compensation of the resources,
deviation of goals and others.
Perceived conflict: In this conflict stage, one party can perceive others to frustrate his
or her own goals. Cunningham and Sawyer (2019) illustrated that in this case, the conflict is
caused due to misunderstanding of the parties on each other’s position. One of the way to
improve of this conflict is proper communication among the group members.

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Felt conflict: In this stage, the conflict is not perceived but also felt. The
personalization of felt conflict causes many individuals to be concerned with reasons of the
conflicts. According to Lake (2017), two main reasons cause personalization of felt conflicts
are unreliable demands on well-organized organization plus individual growth besides entire
personality of individuals involved in relationship.
Manifest conflict: Honeyman, Kaufman and Schneider (2017) discussed that it is the
conflict stage when two parties are engaged in behavior suggests answer from each other.
Violence is type of manifest conflict where motives towards the violence remains tend to
express in less violent form.
Conflict aftermath: It is the final stage of conflict and have either positive or negative
consequence for the project work based on how the conflict is being resolved. If the conflicts
are resolved based on person’s satisfaction, then it leads to cooperative relationship between
persons (Berger 2016). If the conflict is not resolved, then later case may lead to explore
towards more serious form.
In the workplace, conflict occurred between the colleagues when one is disagree with
other ideas or suggestions. There are three types of conflicts occurred in the workplace:
Task conflict: Ramsbotham and Schiff (2018) mentioned that this conflict involved
concrete issues related to work assignments of the employees and included disputes regarding
how to divide works, various opinions by team members and managing work expectations.
Relationship conflict: According to Madge et al. (2019), the relationship conflict
occurred due to difference personality, styles and conflict styles. This conflict is common in
organization and often occurred due to lack of communication among project colleagues.

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Value conflict: This type of conflict raised due to fundamental differences among
identities as well as values, and also involved with differences in religion, ethical norms as
well as beliefs (Sasse 2016).
Negotiation between Paul Curran and project sponsor
In order to negotiate between Paul Curran and project sponsor, communication is
mainly important among them. Effective communication is proportional to effective
negotiation. Paul Curran should require to get excellent communicational skills to get an
effective discussion with the project sponsor regarding the construction work.
Communication skills is mainly used to maintain a personal relationship between them.
Negotiation between Paul Curran in addition to project sponsor is involved with two levels
such as decision making process as well as psychological processes (Bello 2017). Through
proper communication, Paul Curran and project sponsor communicated a structured project
construction phases to control as well as monitor the work. It ensured that there is timely
completion of the project work from both the sides. The project sponsor investigated its
strategic plan by conducting a cost feasibility study included proper assessment of cost as
well as benefits of the project. Paul Curran redesigned changed layout of the parliament
buildings in east part of site such that areas as well as adjacencies are required a fresh project
review (Mu and Pereyra-Rojas 2018). He was provided with a presented new design so that
there should be a fresh start of the construction work.
Apart from the communication, the project sponsor ensured that the Scottish
Parliament Project has right resources to get the project work completed as well as great
project manager to articulate with clear project resource requests. The project sponsor
converses with the project manager regarding requirement of people as well as money for the
project, so that there is constant supply of the project to get success (Ramsbotham and Schiff

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2018). The project sponsor should evaluate the resource requests as well as act as required.
Without an open flow of information as well as open flow of communication among the
project sponsor besides project executive, there is no management of poor articulated work,
lack of credibility as well as poor management of the project work. There is honest as well as
open communication between them. There is better relationship between project manager as
well as project sponsor with proper communication requirements and consequences of not
getting is a significant part of the role of the project manager (Makins 2011). There is a
proper project sponsor evaluation required to get timely response of keeping the relationship
functional.
Negotiation
Identification of issues and justification of decisions
In order to understand and identify issues regarding what was going wrong in the
Holyrood project, it was required to comprehend what makes up in the project lifecycle. The
project lifecycle helps to identify phases of the construction projects from starting to its
completion stages. At the construction initiation stage, the project scope is not defined
properly, and cost, quality as well as completion of the building is not properly done (Dainty,
Moore and Murray 2006). The project is not putting in considerations and the project work is
not fit with the project success criteria. The project team had lacked of logic of gratitude of
the project planning, therefore it made the project budget below an estimation. The key stage
is proper planning by selecting of proper design of procurement approaches.
In the project planning stage, selection of the project sponsor is vital part to success of
the project as not directed by the political suggestion as it seems to select of Mrs Doig those
have lack of expertise in the project work as well as construction management. The other
issue of the project was that the project initiator, Mr Dewar was too much involved with the

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development work (Fraser 2004). The construction process of Scottish Parliament Project
was performed in unprofessional way due to lack of finance as well as improper project
coordination. Based on the nature of the project work, there is high risk in the project due to
lack of contingency plan as well as critical path of project was not provided in proper way. A
failure to reconcile with the business project led to differences for Project Sponsor's (Mrs
Doig's) and employer's (SPCB). Neutral third party is act as a guide for discussion between
the parties. The conflicting parties are agreed to provide a neutral third party, with a power to
take proper project related decisions (Fraser 2004). In this project plan, the change
management is out of control as most of the project changes are performed at execution stage
of the Holyrood project. It causes lack of good project leadership as well as good
management linked with the project work.
Conclusion
It is concluded that the project is a long run project but there are some critics related
to cost, which is required to manage if the project management concepts are to be followed.
Due to lack of understanding of the project work, construction management and cost analysis
by the project sponsor, it raised conflicts among sponsor as well as manager. In order to
manage the project conflicts among the development team, the project sponsor in addition to
manager should require to implement an efficient negotiation and announcement plan to
interact the project issues. From the case analysis, it is concluded that the project team is
required a successful communication to ensure that they meet with customer’s requirements.

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References
Artto, K., Ahola, T. and Vartiainen, V., 2016. From the front end of projects to the back end
of operations: Managing projects for value creation throughout the system
lifecycle. International Journal of Project Management, 34(2), pp.258-270.
Bello, T., 2017. Negotiation as a Tool for Dispute Resolution and Conflict Management in a
Changing World. Available at SSRN 3010144.
Berger, R., 2016. The dynamics of conflict: transforming Northern Ireland.
Cunningham, K.G. and Sawyer, K., 2019. Conflict negotiations and rebel leader
selection. Journal of Peace Research, 56(5), pp.619-634.
Dainty, A., Moore, D. and Murray, M. 2006. “Case Study: the importance of effective
communication: the design and construction of the new Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh”.
Fraser, P., 2004. The Holyrood Inquiry. SP Paper, 205, p.15.
Honeyman, C., Kaufman, S. and Schneider, A.K., 2017. Should They Listen to Us? Seeking a
Negotiation/Conflict Resolution Contribution to Practice in Intractable Conflicts. Journal of
Dispute Resolution, 2017(1), p.9.
Lake, M., 2017. Building the rule of war: Postconflict institutions and the micro-dynamics of
conflict in Eastern DR Congo. International Organization, 71(2), pp.281-315.
Madge, J., Colavizza, G., Hetherington, J., Guo, W. and Wilson, A., 2019. Simulating
Imperial Dynamics and Conflict in the Ancient World. arXiv preprint arXiv:1903.11729.
Makins, J., 2011. Evaluate The Impact of The Relatioship Between Project Manager And
Project Sponsor on Project Performance With Emphasis On The Final Project Result and The
End Effect.

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Mayer, B., 2018. Conflict Resolution for the Helping Professions: Negotiation, Mediation,
Advocacy, Facilitation, and Restorative Justice.
Mu, E. and Pereyra-Rojas, M., 2018. AHP for group negotiation and conflict resolution.
In Practical Decision Making using Super Decisions v3 (pp. 91-96). Springer, Cham.
Ramsbotham, O. and Schiff, A., 2018. When formal negotiations fail: strategic negotiation,
ripeness theory, and the Kerry initiative. Negotiation and Conflict Management
Research, 11(4), pp.321-340.
Sasse, G., 2016. International linkages and the dynamics of conflict: revisiting the post-Soviet
conflicts.