Negotiation Skills – Course Introduction
This page contains a very rough outline of the course Negotiation Skills, along with some information on its implementation, activieties, assessment, methodology, etc. This outline is currently based on an older course and will be developed further as we go along, so the content ist still very much work in progress... For some further information, please also consult my introductory presentation.
The basic idea is that most learning activities and assessment revolve around one common theme in the form of a scenario that links the main activities together. The topics for this project will be distributed in the first session, where you will also form groups that jointly develop the project, with each team member being assigned responsibilities for investigating and reporting on one or more sub-topics.
When you choose and investigate a scenario, you should research this in the context of preparing yourselves for later negotiations with another (‘opposing’) team. When deciding on the exact scenario, you should meet up with the other team to discuss what exactly you're going to work on, but, after that, each group should first investigate both sides of the scenario independently to ensure that they have understood what all the relevant arguments and counter-arguments that may come up in the negotiations are. In other words, the group members also need to ‘put themselves in the shoes’ of the opposing team to be able to anticipate and respond to any arguments brought forth by either party in the negotiations.
Technical Presentation Skills (2 wks)
Aim: Identify various skills of technical presentation and apply them in conducting short technical presentations, based on information extracted from readings.
Associated activities:
- You will be taught & will also practise the basic notions behind and elements of creating PowerPoint presentations, including presentation techniques, elements of structuring, sensible layouting, and appropriate use of graphics & animation features.
- Everyone applies the some basic reading techniques/search strategies to working with business-relevant texts, choosing and evaluating suitable sources critically, selecting the most appropriate ones, and identifying the main points to be incorporated into a presentation.
Assessment will take the form of a group presentation on the ideas developed and information collected for the relevant scenario. It should therefore contain all necessary background information that is required for negotiating on the topic, as well as illustrating the potential arguments that may be brought into play by either one of the parties, no matter which side exactly you're representing.
Technical Discussion Skills (4 wks)
Aim: Identify technical discussion skills and apply these in planning and conducting simulated technical discussions characteristic of those that may go on in businesses.
Associated activities:
- You work in groups to identify technical discussion skills through consciousness-raising activities.
- You then apply these skills in planning and conducting a simulated technical team discussion according to the roles assigned to you and drawing on the materials produced for the earlier presentations.
- Planning and discussion will include the design of Gantt charts in order to simulate the planning of a project centred around the given scenarios.
Developing Negotiation Skills (4 wks)
Aim: Learn how to apply the discussion skills developed earlier in groups and apply these in negotiating with another team, simulating a business scenario.
Associated activities:
- You work with the opposing team to see how the facts you have identified earlier can be brought into play during simulated discussions.
- You learn how to achieve a consensus/compromise situation, as well how to summarise/keep track of the different stages of the negotiation process to keep a record of how far the negotiations have progressed.
Further materials will be added at a later stage.