Prepare yourself for Negotiation by using "Dispute Analysis"

Completing this questionnaire will help you to prepare for negotiation and mediation. You can discuss your answers with me. As this questionnaire is designed for use in all types of commercial and civil conflicts, some questions will not apply to your dispute.

Please complete the following Questionnaire:

1. What is the dispute about?
   
   
2. Was there an agreement that you had with _________that you believe has been breached? What was it?
   
   
3. Has the agreement been varied in any way? How?
   
   
4. When was the agreement breached?
   
   
5. How was it breached?
   
   
6. How and when did you communicate the breach to _________. What was ________ ‘s response?
   
   
7. What is _________ ‘s perspective about the breach?
   
   
8. Is there distrust between you? Why?
   
   
9. What aspects of the dispute do you and ________ agree about?
   
   
10. What do you disagree about?
    
    
11. What is ________’s perspective about the aspect of the dispute that you disagree about?
    
    
12. What is your perspective?
    
    
13. What do you base your perspective on?
    
    
14. Have you provided the data on which you base your perspective to ______?
    
    
15. Has _______ confirmed receipt?
    
    
16. What information do you need from ________? Have you requested it? Why hasn’t ______ provided it to you?
    
    
17. What criteria can you and _______ use to resolve your disagreement?
    
    
18. What are your objectives? Rank them in order of importance.
    
    
19. What do you think _______’s objectives are concerning this dispute? Rank your hunches.
    
    
20. What objectives do you seem to have in common?
    
    
21. Which objectives appear to be independent of each other?
    
    
22. Which objectives appear to be in conflict? In what creative ways could these be overcome?
    
    
23. How can you check out your hunches about ______’s objectives?
    
    
24. Why hasn’t this dispute settled?
    
    
25. What can you do about the reason for the dispute not settling?
    
    
26. What relationship would you like to have with _______ once this dispute is settled?
    
    
27. What is the worst thing that could happen if this dispute is not resolved?
    
    
28. How can you deal with this possibility?
    
    
29. If this dispute is about the end of a relationship – such as a death, a partnership or letting go of an employee – have you and _______ healed enough emotionally to be ready to negotiate?
    
    
30. Who needs to be part of any decision to resolve this dispute?