This reflection blog is centered on conflict resolution. Conflicts in my workplace tend to occur when dealing with various processes, opinions, and personality.  I started working for my company in 2004 and my first role was to design and manage an aircraft induction process. This process would be used to determine logistical requirements for each depot. There are two depots with one being rain by a civilian contractor and the next one is owned and operated by the government. The stakeholders in this process included internal customers such as engineering, supply chain management, finance, modification and retrofit, and configuration management.  The external customers included our partners, another aviation contractor, the depot teams and the government oversight, and the Air Force. Being a military trained I assumed I could easy coordinate and communicated the needs of the process, and be able to handle the pressures of the diverse group of opinions and personality.  Very quickly did I learn that a persons opinions and experience, when applied, can derail the entire effort.

In the beginning of developing this process, my plan was to use the reverse scheduling concept, back planning everything that had to be done based on the aircraft depot arrival date.  Whatever that backward date end up being, would be the actual start date for the management and coordination of requirements. This should be easy, right?  We are all professionals in our career field and paid well for what we do. This was not easy and the role of the opinion maker is what drove the conflict. I quickly learned that each stakeholder had a passion about their role in the process, and I quickly learned we were not getting anywhere on designing the processes because everyone had their own opinion on who was supposed to do what, and how things were to be done.

The role I played was the coordinator for the contractor who was on contract to develop and maintain the process, and my technical reputation was on the line, depending on the end result. I immediately saw the compounding issues, and set up a meeting with my director and senior managers. As a team we devised a phase approach to the development, with hopes of lessening tension and creating a more inclusive environment with smaller stake holder involvement. The phase approach allowed us to focus at a micro level by breaking the process in a pre and post aircraft arrival. This was a valuable approach as it removed those individuals that really had no value added, except for their level of involvement.   This approach of smaller meetings happened quarterly until the process was solid. Additionally, our team conducted lean initiatives such as Value Stream Mapping (VSM) and smaller Kaizen type of events to solidify the process even more.

            The end result is nine years later the team is still using the same process. The room for improvement is before jumping into a project, it would have been good to understand the environment. The reason I mention this is there were times I found myself in tears due to the pressure and all the intense communication. I am not a person who cries, but when tension overwhelms me, it happens. I also learned to ask questions and engage my management before something escalates to a conflict that I cannot manage. The overall experience taught me to be stronger as a leader. I learned to stand ground in what I believe verses let someone walk all over me. Confidence is the skill set that I have improved the most on, which I contribute that on knowing my job and being accountable for my action and not take others actions personal. As a young child I was never good at conflict management, and I am getting as I get older.