What do you do if conflict arises in your IT Operations Management career?

The context will influence how you acknowledge it. Were people arguing in a team meeting, in front of others and do you need to step in? Did one person email you directly and can you help them decide how they can resolve it?

Recognize and address the conflict immediately rather than allowing it to escalate. For example, if two team members have a disagreement over resource allocation, acknowledge the issue and plan a meeting to discuss it.

In your IT Operations Management career, here's how to handle conflicts effectively: 1. Address conflicts promptly to prevent escalation. 2. Understand perspectives and underlying issues. 3. Maintain professionalism and stay calm during discussions. 4. Communicate clearly and encourage open dialogue. 5. Find common ground and shared goals. 6. Collaborate on solutions with all parties involved. 7. Consider mediation if needed for complex conflicts. 8. Document agreements and ensure follow-up for resolution. Following these steps can help you manage conflicts and maintain a positive work environment.

Create a safe space for open communication, encouraging all parties to share their perspectives. If there’s a dispute over project priorities, facilitate a round-table discussion to hear all sides.

Encourage people to lean on facts and focus on the issue. You want to grow a team that can disagree but still respect each other. Name calling or tantrums are not helpful and should not be tolerated.

A decentralized and participatory management approach. I believe this is an interesting approach. I see that this type of team management allows everyone to have an active voice, being able to speak about expectations, diffculties, and achievements, as well as feeling purposeful and engaged.

Evaluate how the conflict is affecting team performance and morale. If a new policy is causing friction, gather feedback to understand its effects on workflow and team dynamics.

Often the impact is less concrete and is just resulting in a bad vibe amongst the team. Anchor on the outcome you need to achieve and why the differences of opinion exist.

Involve the conflicting parties in finding a resolution. In case of disagreements on technology implementation, consider a collaborative approach to decision-making.

Sometimes you need to pull rank and make an executive decision, especially if there's a stalemate that more than one solution is equally as viable.

Take decisive action to implement the agreed-upon solutions. If the conflict is over support procedures, update the protocols accordingly.

Continuously check if the resolution is effective and make adjustments as necessary. After resolving a dispute about on-call duties, regularly review the new schedule’s effectiveness with the team.

If you choose one solution over another, sometimes you need to console people that it wasn't about their idea winning or losing - it was about whether we got the best possible outcome. And sometimes we won't know that until we give one of the options a try. If it was the wrong choice, that's ok too, we'll try something different.