Get that Budget! A Three-party Negotiation

From Peacebuilding

Activity: Get that Budget! A Three-party Negotiation

Contents 1 Note: 2 Aims: 3 Time: 4 Participants: 5 Materials: 6 Procedure: 7 Debriefing: 8 Note: 9 Alternatives: 10 Handouts 10.1 Handout 1 – Situation and Roles 10.2 Handout 2 - Rules 11 Source:

Note:

Familiarise yourself very well with the dynamics and rules of this role-play before facilitating it in a workshop.

Aims:

• To practise three-party negotiation

• To explore the importance of coalitions in multiparty negotiations

Time:

At least 60 minutes

Participants:

At least nine participants, in three teams of three

Materials:

• Copies of Handout 1, “Situation and Roles”, and Handout 2, “Rules” (see below)

• Sheets of paper or notebooks for participants

• Pencils

• Flip charts

• Markers

Procedure:

I) Divide the plenary into three teams. Have them sit together. Explain that the participants will be asked to role-play a three-party negotiation.

II) Distribute copies of Handout 1 to the teams, making sure that each team gets a different role (RDAF, FAVOW or MOSD). Allow enough time for teams to read the handouts and understand the situation and their roles. Ask if they have any questions and make sure the information in the handout is fully understood.

III) Explain the rules of the game. Display the rules in Handout 2 using a visual aid (flip chart, PPP or overhead projector). Distribute copies of Handout 2 to each team.

IV) Demonstrate the role-play and rules of the game to make sure they’re understood.

V) Start the role-play. Allow sufficient time (at least 45 minutes) and give help to teams if any clarification is needed.

VI) After the deal has been completed, allocate five extra minutes for reaching agreement on how to share out the remaining budget (see Rule 8 in Handout 2).

Debriefing:

The following questions are only suggestions. Feel free to omit, supplement and change them as you wish:

• How do you feel about this activity?

• How do you feel about your team’s performance?

• How do you feel about the outcome?

• How do you feel about the other teams?

• How do you feel about the negotiation procedure?

• What interesting things happened during the negotiations?

• What coalition did you try to form and why?

• What happened when you tried to form a coalition?

• How could you get the best possible deal given the budget allocation conditions decided on by Caritas?

• In your opinion which team did best and why?

• When did things change during the negotiation?

• What have you learned from this activity?

• How important is it to form coalitions in multiparty negotiations?

• Can you give any examples of multiparty negotiations in the real world?

• Do you have any examples of multiparty negotiations in which you are/were involved?

• What tends to happen in situations like this in the real world?

• How does the situation described in this role-play relate to the situations you deal with?

• What if you could meet with the other parties on other occasions?

• What if you could communicate freely with all the parties (as many times and for as long as you wanted)?

• What if you had more deal cards?

• What if the money were real?

• What if you could communicate with the other parties only through written messages?

• How would you behave differently if you were to do the role-play a second time?

• What advice would you give to someone who is going to do the role-play for the first time?

• What would you change in the role-play situation and rules to make it work better?

Note:

This role-play has built-in “inefficiency” which makes it difficult for the parties to arrive at an agreement. RDAF and FAVOW can reach a fairly good agreement together, without needing to involve MOSD. They can form a coalition and get most of the budget. Then they will only need to negotiate with MOSD on how to share out the remaining budget (€242,000 – €236,000 = €6,000).

However, MOSD wouldn’t like to be left out, so they’d probably try to break up any coalition between RDAF and FAVOW by making an attractive offer to one or the other.

For example, if RDAF and FAVOW agree to form a coalition and share the budget equally between them (€118,000 each), MOSD could offer RDAF €130,000 for agreeing to form a coalition with them. Thereby MOSD would get €38,000 (€168,000 – €130,000 = €38,000) via a coalition, and a portion of the remaining budget to be divided between the three agencies (a portion of €242,000 – €168,000 = €74,000).

The same is true if a coalition agreement between RDAF and FAVOW were to allocate a bigger portion of the budget to either of them. MOSD can always go to either party and make an offer that would make it more profitable for this party to break up the coalition.

Likewise, if RDAF and MOSD (or FAVOW and MOSD) tried to form a coalition, the party that was left out could always try to break it up by making offers, based on the budget allocation conditions stipulated by Caritas.

Alternatives:

• If you don’t have a minimum of nine participants, you can either have teams of two (a total of six participants) or individuals (a total of three participants).

• If you have a larger group, it’s best to have teams with fewer than 6-7 people. Larger teams make it difficult for each member to participate actively. Therefore, if your plenary is larger than 18-20 participants, it’s better to divide it into two or more groups with three teams each.

• You can change the dynamics and rules of the game, for example, by:

* assigning more (or less) meeting cards to each team

* assigning more (or less) deal cards to each team

* making things unequal by assigning more (or less) meeting or deal cards to some teams

* assigning more (or less) time for meetings.

• If you have a large number of participants, and more than one group of three teams, you can have the groups role-playing according to different rules to see how the changes influence the procedure and outcome of the negotiations. For example, you can have one group communicating only via written messages, and another through meetings.

Handouts

Handout 1 – Situation and Roles

Handout 2 - Rules

Source:

An article by the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University inspired this activity. The article focuses on efficiency in multiparty business negotiations, especially on how available communication channels influence the probability of excluding some parties from the deal. See Kern, M.C., et al., "Efficiency of Multiparty Negotiations: Talking and Negotiating", Evanston, IL: Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, 2001, http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/deliberation/papers/diermeier.doc.