Negotiation Analysis

Negotiation Analysis

1. Analyze the negotiation context: Opportunities and constraints

   • Assess the historical, political, legal, and cultural context in which negotiations take place.
   • Assess the purpose of the negotiation: Deal-making or dispute resolution?
   • Assess the nature of the conflict: Are ideologies involved?
   • Assess external constraints: Place.
     • In addition to time constraints, where negotiations take place also matters.
   • Assess external constraints: Communication channels.
     • With the rapid development of new technologies, negotiations are increasingly conducted in mediated contexts for greater convenience.
   • Assess external constraints: Is time an issue?
     • Negotiations are often associated with some time-related costs.
   • Assess the temporality of the negotiation: One-shot or longterm?

2. Analyze the negotiation structure and components

   • Identify the negotiation parties.
     • A party to a negotiation is any person or group pursuing distinct goals in the context of a specific negotiation.
   • Define the issues.
     • The number of issues each party brings into the negotiation tends to have a strong influence on the strategies negotiators choose.
   • Understand the underlying interests.
   • Consider alternatives.
   • Create a scoring system and sort out preferences.
     • Once negotiators have a clear understanding of their underlying interests for all the issues they have identified,
   • Determine the target/aspiration and reservation/resistance points.
     • Knowing BATNAs and creating a scoring system allow negotiators to determine their reservation/resistance points, the points at which negotiators can walk away from the negotiation.
   • Assess your negotiation style.
   • Practice perspective taking.
     • Ideally, negotiators would like to have all the information they need about the other party’s positions, interests, preferences, and alternatives, in order to achieve the best outcome possible.
   • Assess the relationship with the other party.

3. Planning and preparing inform negotiators’ strategic choices; the attitudes, emotions, and behaviors of the counterpart will cause negotiators to revise their pre-existing plans and develop new goals, which will in turn result in behavioral changes.