Patent Law

Negotiating Planning

By Les Weinstein, Michael Young, John Leo Wagner, Eric van Ginkel, and Victoria Pynchon

There's a lot of meat to put on these bones but this set of suggestions for pre-negotiation preparation is a good start.  It's applicability to IP negotiations next.

PRE-NEGOTIATION TIPS – MEMORY JOGGERS 2  (summary)

• document each party’s goals, attitudes, limitations and the known or likely opening stance of each side… 
• develop a negotiation strategy by
  • Listing possible solutions for your negotiating partner
  • Listing likely repercussions for both parties
  • defining possible areas of agreement
  • brainstorming underlying mutual needs or common ground.
  • Preparing a list of fair procedures including how we deal with each other’ i.e. values, ethics, use of experts, standards in the industry, etc. 
  • determining the impact of limitations, i.e., what your bargaining partner may realistically be able to accept
  • setting or becoming aware of and sharing deadlines
  • assessing the ability of the negotiating team to make decisions
  • assessing probable internal political impediments and possible fallout for both side
  • seeing the negotiation from your negotiating partner's perspective i.e.
    • what is their real problem
    • how do they view our position and attitude.
  • Listing alternative actions that may provide some basis for continuation of the negotiation
    • suggest strict deadlines and "homework" for both sides
    • suggest a partial agreement
    • have an ‘if all else fails option’ (sometimes referred to as a lifeboat)
  • Planning ways to neutralise existing biases such as customera are greedy, unionists are troublemakers, management is anti-worker, etc. that could hinder eithr side's willingness to listen and problem-solve.
  • Scheduling a pre-negotiation role-play (split team into "our side" and "their side" to sharpen understanding of weaknesses in your arguments or approach.
    

Thanks to OrgLearn for this "Management Thought for the Week."

Full post as published by IP ADR Blog on June 30, 2008 (boomark / email).