Evan Piekara

piekara.evanPaper (53): Embracing Conflict: It’s Your Job.

Abstract: Conflict occurs in any environment and the success of a project often depends on how leaders manage and resolve conflict. Issues can occur with various stakeholders (project team, client, other influencers) and embracing problems head-on can be the difference between successfully completing a project and escalation that hinders productivity. This presentation and paper will address how to build teams that embrace conflict, harness the positive aspects of conflict and mitigate issues before they metastasize into project and relationship-damaging conflicts. The paper will review common sources of conflict, the conflict lifecycle, and strategies for resolving conflict at each stage. This presentation and paper will also provide common strategies for addressing conflict with various stakeholders in order to effectively manage projects, people, and personalities.

Biography: Evan Piekara PMP, CMS, is a Senior Consultant at BDO USA LLP and MBA Graduate from Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business. Evan has supported BDO in the launch of its Public Sector Consulting Practice. He has supported public sector clients in transformational efforts involving change management, strategic planning, performance management and evaluation and requirements gathering.