Preparation for Negotiations

Review of the Subject:

Being able to negotiate is a fine art, but without proper preparation you greatly increase the possibility of failing to achieve your goals. It becomes even more complicated when you are the agent for an entity that is trying to win or successfully complete an agreement. An agent can be a lawyer, people responsible for negotiating contracts within a company, or it might be a group of people, a team that negotiates contracts for an entity. Regardless, there has to be some meeting of the minds to discuss the proper preparation for the negotiation and establish a mutual understanding of some of the metrics that will determine whether your party succeeds in its mission. Negotiations don’t always happen in one day; therefore preparation is a continuous process. Your measurements or your metrics may change as negotiations go on if this takes place over a period of time. Before you start negotiating with the party on the other side of the table, it is important to have some sort of discussion to make sure that you and your client, or other people on your team are in agreement.

Discussion:

The following are three different situations all of which will require preparation before negotiations begin. What we will discuss the metrics that will be established, and how they will be applied, as well as why they are important to the process. We will also discuss why we select the measurements that will be used to determine if our negotiations are successful.

Situation One: The Central Airport Authority (CAA) has selected your team to continue negotiations to construct the new terminal, which will house 50 gates for 10 different airlines. There were two other contractors, but they were eliminated because arguments lead to an impasse for one, and the other contractor’s plan was vague and their presentation was not very organized. The CAA has a conceptual idea of what it wants, but you are responsible for coming up with the final design for which you...