|
|
| Past Projects
Spring 2008
Challenge: Develop a management model that honors institutional culture
The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) is a multi-million dollar a year charitable organization dedicated to nonviolence and the recognition of the human dignity inherent in every person. The Quaker focus on consensus-based decision making, equality, and universal participation in public service underpins the organization’s business model. The challenge of this project is to develop a set of decision-making and dispute management procedures for the organization, including a way to coordinate national strategic priorities with regional programming, in a way that promotes effective service delivery while also honoring the Friends’ core values.
Our work : Conduct a conflict analysis
Step 1: Conduct an analysis of the current way in which conflicts are handled at the AFSC (possibly a multi-semster endeavor).
Step 2: Working with the advice of the Deputy General Secretary of the AFSC, conduct a thorough literature review.
Step 3: Conduct a series of stakeholder interviews, focusing on the effectiveness, popular acceptance and accessibility of the dispute resolution process and the Ombudperson's office.
Final Product: Based on the team’s analysis of the current strengths and weaknesses of the AFSC’s management model, the team will make a process recommendation for designing a system that will build on what already exists while also addressing the system’s shortcomings.
Auschwitz Center for Peace and Reconciliation
Rene Pfromm and Ines Wu |
 |
Challenge: Develop a negotiation training for a genocide prevention workshop
The Auschwitz Institute for Peace and Reconciliation is dedicated to preventing genocide and its recurrence worldwide through the creation of an international network of mid-level diplomats who are knowledgeable about the causes, dynamics and consequences of genocide, and who collaborate on how to address it. This year, the center will launch a week-long workshop for mid-level government career personnel from around the world to study the cases and possible responses to genocide. The course organizers have set aside one day of the course to cover the ways in which negotiation and conflict resolution skills can be useful in preventing genocide. HNMCP is working to develop this component of the workshop.
Our work: Design an appropriate curriculum
Step 1: Conduct a thorough literature review taking into consideration the gravity of the subject matter. Any negotiation training for this course would have to cover not only the basics of interest-based negotiation, but also the complicated ethical and tactical questions raised when negotiating in the face of ‘evil.’
Step 2: Develop context-specific simulations (one or two) and training content (presentation slides, etc.).
Step 3: Give a mock training at HLS.
Final Product: Stand-alone curriculum, complete with appropriate reference materials and simulations, and presentation of this material in May, 2008 in Auschwitz, Poland.
The Citadel
GJ Ligelis, Esther Washauer-Baker, and David Moss |
 |
Challenge: Evaluate the dispute management system for a top military institution
Founded in 1842, the Citadel is a coeducational military college with a rich and storied history. Eleven years ago, The Citadel, in collaboration with consultants from the Harvard Negotiation Project, began to restructure its internal dispute management system. Among other reforms, The Citadel created the office of the Ombudsperson, which began handling inquiries from students, faculty and staff, both informally and confidentially. This project seeks to evaluate the effectiveness of these reform efforts, and also to explore further ways to address conflict at the Citadel in a way that is appropriate given the school’s unique history and culture.
Our work: Create dispute system recommendations
Step 1: Research the history of The Citadel, the dispute system design process, and any institutional or procedural reforms which have taken place since the creation of the system.
Step 2: Determine what kinds of indicators might be used to evaluate The Citadel's dispute resolution process.
Step 3: Conduct a series of on-site stakeholder interviews to understand the nature of the disputes arising at the Citadel and how those disputes are typically handled.
Final Product: A background case-study of the Citadel's dispute management system design process, a detailed report outlining the findings from student evaluations, and recommendations focusing on possible reforms to ensure that The Citadel's dispute management system continues to be an innovative model for other institutions to emulate.
Challenge: Develop a dispute management system for low-income housing
Not every illness has a biological cause. The Medical Legal Partnership for Children (MLPC) combines the strengths of law and medicine to address the social determinants (food, housing, education, and safety) known to influence child health. To address one of the largest problems, housing, MLPC works with its clients to secure sustainable housing options. MLPC is aware that there currently exist few if any options for resolving disputes among tenants or between tenants and landlords, and that these problems left unresolved often culminate in eviction proceedings. MLPC hopes to work with HNMCP to propose a more effective dispute management system. The first step in this project is to conduct a comprehensive analysis exploring what dispute management mechanisms already exist and what kinds of disputes typically go unaddressed.
Our work: Design a dispute management system
Step 1: Research the current conflict resolution service provision in tenancy cases and analyze the findings.
Step 2: After considering all possible stakeholders, conduct comprehensive stakeholder interviews.
Step 3: Research best practices for managing disputes in similar settings.
Step 4: Provide a preliminary analysis of feasibility of certain proposed dispute management solutions, including focused collaborative outreach efforts with stakeholders to help get them involved and invested into the process.
Final Product: A sophisticated analysis of current dispute management structure, a summary of best practices for dispute management solutions in similar, and a proposal for possible reforms that might be undertaken to expand the services available and help better manage disputes.
Fall 2007
Challenge: Develop a consensus process for municipal approaches to immigration
Using innovative strategies, The Consensus Building Institute improves the way leaders, advocates, experts and communities make public and organizational decisions. In the summer of 2007, an omnibus bill to address a range of immigration issues across the United States failed to pass the U.S. Senate. Without an overarching federal framework to address immigration, these issues remain unaddressed. CBI proposed to convene a dialogue of municipalities, immigration advocacy groups of various views, and other appropriate stakeholders in a public policy dialogue to develop concrete, effective legal policy recommendations for counties and municipalities regarding these issues. The challenge of this project was to produce a viable design for a consensus process that could be funded, draw broad participation, and be initiated in 2008.
Our work : Design the process for a multi-stakeholder dialogue
Step 1: Research local laws that have been passed regarding immigration.
Step 2: Identify the key issues that municipalities have sought to address through local policy reforms.
Step 3: Frame a possible purpose statement, objectives and process design for the dialogue.
Step 4: Identify the key stakeholders and potential partners, their interests, and reasons why they may support such an effort.
Final Product: A report outlining the results of the interviews, the results of the research, and, based on this data, a recommendation whether to hold a policy dialogue, and if so, how it should be framed, structured, and possibly funded.
Challenge: Develop a dispute system to address major injury claims
Covenant Transport is one of the top ten trucking companies in the United States. Typically, such trucking companies face extremely costly and time-consuming legal claims seeking millions of dollars for personal injury or death resulting from unavoidable traffic accidents. In addition, the prolonged process of discovery and settlement negotiation does little to relieve the distress of the damaged individuals and their families. Gamesmanship and posturing on both sides greatly diminish chances of reaching early and reasonable settlements. Covenant Transportation approached HNMCP to develop a strategy for arriving at early and more equitable settlements in such cases. The challenge of this project was to design a dispute system for major claims that favors interest-based solutions while still fitting with the usual framework of mass tort claims and the particular culture of the defense bar.
Our work: Design a new approach to injury claims
Step 1: Conduct interviews of key actors in the negotiation of catastrophic accident claims.
Step 2: Conduct phone meetings with the General Counsel of Convenant Transport to discuss possible strategy formulations and the feasibility of their implementation.
Final Product: A draft of the “Covenant Model” of interest-based liability claims resolution, presented as a handbook on how Covenant will pursue claims in a way that maximizes the likelihood of early resolution, and corresponds with the overall ethos of the company, namely to "do the right thing."
Challenge: Evaluate the best practices for international land disputes
Mercy Corps works amid disasters, conflicts, chronic poverty and instability to unleash the potential of people who can win against nearly impossible odds. In a number of the countries where Mercy Corps works, the staff confronts land conflict issues. In some cases, they have designed specific programs to address the land conflict but in other cases, there is no specific program in place to address land conflict directly. The purpose of this project was to collect information on best practices from countries where Mercy Corps and other agencies manage land conflicts.
Our work: Evaluate models for land disputes
Step 1: Communicate with country staff about the type of land conflicts they confront.
Step 2: Research how Mercy Corps as well as other international nongovernmental organizations manage land conflict.
Step 3:Develop a document proposing a best-practice field manual for understanding and addressing land disputes in a humanitarian context.
Final Product: A draft 'framework for action' on how to approach land disputes in a humanitarian context.
Challenge: Design and evaluate a reconciliation process for disaffected Catholics
The Paulist Center Community offers members and all who gather a warm, spiritual home for progressive Catholics. In May 2006, the Paulist Center established the Paulist North American Office for Reconciliation “To develop a wide pastoral process to address the needs for dialogue and reconciliation in the Church today." The center seeks to address the needs of a church community traumatized by the sexual abuse scandal and conflict over numerous Church teachings and positions. The idea of this project was to evaluate one proposed method for promoting reconciliation within the Catholic community. The proposed idea, called a “safe space,” would provide alienated Catholics with a low-risk, facilitated space where they can engage in dialogue and active listening with other Catholics and members of the Catholic hierarchy. HNMCP helped develop this model by convening and facilitating two groups of participants, following and analyzing their experiences to create a set of recommendations on how to craft the program moving forward.
Our work: Evaluate the "safe space" model
Step 1: Research and understand the issues involved in internal Catholic Church conflicts and similar dispute resolution efforts in the field.
Step 2: Work with Bob Bowers, Consultant for Outreach and Reconciliation at the Paulist Center in Boston, for orientation, planning and the construction of the two groups.
Step 3: Develop and run the "safe space" model, including the interview process for potential participants.
Step 4: Conduct exit interviews with each participant, focusing on whether their expectations for the effort were met.
Step 5: Reconvene the group and present the project's findings to the group for review and for their comments.
Final Product: Finalized facilitation manual for the 'safe space model.'
Fall 2006 & Spring 2007
Consensus Building Institute
Challenge: Design a stakeholder dialogue model to help resolve land ownership disputes on the Western United States
CBI improves the way leaders, advocates, experts and communities make public and organizational decisions. The Bureau of Land Management is one of the largest landholders in the western United States. It manages 262 million acres of lands, almost solely west of the Mississippi. Though once rural, many western states now face tremendous population growth. As these urban areas push up against BLM boundaries, there is tremendous pressure upon the federal government to turn abutting public land over to the private sector for development and inclusion within city boundaries. CBI hoped to convene a dialogue among interested stakeholders (BLM, cities, states, private sector developers, environmental NGOs) on the national policy implications of these major urban-BLM land exchanges. HNCMP was asked to develop the guidelines for this stakeholder dialogue.
Our work: Evaluate the possibility of a stakeholder dialogue
Step 1: Research and review the land issues in the Western United States and identify any existing dialogue efforts, reports, pending legislative proposals, or other initiatives related to this topic.
Step 2: Interview key stakeholders via phone to explore the policy implications of potential land swaps by the federal government and the interest in convening some kind of federal policy dialogue.
Step 3: Analyze the interviews.
Final Product: A report outlining the results of the interviews, the results of the research, and, based on this data, a recommendation on whether to hold a policy dialogue, and if so, how it would be scoped, structured, and possibly funded. |
Consensus Building Institute
Challenge: Develop facilitation expertise for NGOs
CBI improves the way leaders, advocates, experts and communities make public and organizational decisions. Numerous non-governmental organizations (NGOs) across the country are engaged in coalition building and collaboration. Whether it is sustainable agricultural organizations seeking to partner with environmental groups on national farm policy, or violence prevention groups and community development corporations partnering to reduce gang violence, diverse organizations are having to find innovative ways to align their strategies and work together. Foundations are increasingly requiring their grantees to work within alliances and coalitions. NGOs are discovering that they cannot have meaningful, real change collaboration across traditional disciplinary lines. One of the key skills numerous NGOs are calling out for are superior facilitation skills to help these diverse groups work more efficiently and effectively together. CBI hoped to create a training for NGOs on how to facilitating collaboration. HNMCP assisted CBI in develop, market, and deliver this training.
Our work: design a training program in coalition building
Step 1: Interview NGOs to understand their particular training needs in this area.
Step 2: Review existing materials at CBI, PON, and CDR and use the materials to create a training manual.
Step 3: Develop and implement a marketing plan to NGOs and foundations across the U.S.
Final Product: A training manual for NGOs interested in working within alliances and coalitions, presentation of these materials, and evaluation of the training course with recommendations for further course refinement.
|
U.S. Department of State
Challenge: Develop a dispute systems for a cooperative working group coordinating United Nations Compensation funding
The Department of State is the U.S. Government’s executive branch agency with the primary responsibility for foreign affairs and diplomacy. The Office of the Legal Adviser consists of attorneys, paralegals, and support staff who serve as legal counsel for the Department’s various offices, embassies, and missions world wide. This office serves as the lead office for representing the U.S. Government at the UN Compensation Commission (UNCC) in Geneva. The UNCC was established by the UN Security Council in 1991 to process claims and pay compensation for losses resulting from Iraq’s invasion into Kuwait. Among the many claimants, four countries – Iran, Jordan, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia - were awarded compensation for environmental damages. The UNCC has recently begun to fund these awards, creating in the process, a regional environmental working group RERAG to coordinate projects and share information about each country’s process with its environmental remediation efforts. This joint-effort is a unique opportunity to promote coordination in the region and achieve positive gains for the environment. HNMCP helped to conduct a two part project with regard to the RERAG group. First, the students conducted a conflict assessment of RERAG’s interests as a group and of its individual participants. Then, they developed a systems design proposal for how the group, given its multi-faceted interests, should operate both on the procedural and substantive levels.
Our work: Conduct an interest assessment and work with the stakeholders to create a systems design
Step 1: Research on the dynamics of cooperative workgroups that are created out of a negotiation process.
Step 2: Research on the best system and process design for attaining the desired goals of this particular workgroup.
Step 3: Gather facts with the Department of State, the UNCC Secretariat, and representatives from the RERAG member countries, as necessary.
Step 4: Travel to Washington and potentially to Geneva to attend meetings, as necessary, to complete the project.
Final Product: A final report outlining a conflict assessment of the RERAG and proposing a system and process design for the group. This report should include both overarching analysis and distinct, concrete recommendations that can ultimately be used by the UNCC and RERAG. |
Office of New York City Council Member Daniel R. Garodnick
Challenge: Conduct a stakeholder assessment of a larger building project in New York City
Daniel R. Garodnick is a member of the New York City Council, representing a large portion of the East Side of Manhattan. A large lot in the Council Member’s district, comprising nearly nine acres of land on the East River, is the subject of a dispute as to how it is best developed. The lot was formerly the site of a power plant owned by the local electric company, Con Edison. The power plant and associated buildings are being demolished to make way for new construction. The new owner of the land proposes to build several skyscrapers of luxury housing and office space, as well as a privately owned but publicly accessible park. To accomplish those goals, the developer seeks to have the City rezone the property. As a result, the City has the opportunity to weigh in on the form of the eventual development. A coalition of elected officials (including the Council Member) and community groups has been pressuring the developer to reduce the scale of the buildings and to provide certain public benefits as part of the project, such as affordable housing, a school, public access to the waterfront, and infrastructure improvements. HNMCP was asked to generate ideas on how to work with the developer to maximize the public benefit that can result from this venture.
Our work: Conduct a stakeholder assessment
Step 1: Research and review literature on real estate negotiations between developers and local government.
Step 2: Conduct interviews with various stakeholders to understand their concerns and interests, both over the phone and in New York.
Final Product: A report outlining the concerns and interests of the various stakeholders, identifying points of commonality, and presenting proposals to maximize the public benefit that could result from the project. |
FAIR Fund -- Dru Campaign
Challenge: Develop a guidebook and training for advocates of strong campus policies towards sexual violence
FAIR Fund is an international organization that supports and engages young women in civic activism to address gender-based violence in their communities and lives. One in four college women report suffering from sexual violence during their college careers. Moreover, this number is deceptively low because less then 10 percent of sexual assaults are reported to police, according to a National Institute of Justice research report. The Dru Campaign, launched in the Fall of 2006, looks holistically at the issue of sexual violence against young women. FAIR Fund asked HNMCP to create a comprehensive toolkit and training program for undergraduates hoping to advocate for new or better campus reporting polices on sexual violence.
Our work: Create a handbook and training curriculum
Step 1: Review of history and best practices of student advocacy and lobbying on college campuses - particularly with regard to campus policies on gender-based violence and safety.
Step 2: Convene focus group discussions with three college campus undergraduate student groups to discuss the toolkit materials.
Step 3: Review and include in the manual best strategies in lobbying, campaigning, and negotiations in this area.
Final Product: A refined toolkit and training guide for college campus activists on creating or improving campus policies on gender-based violence, including the reporting mechanisms for sexual violence. |
Paulist Center
Challenge: Conduct a conflict assessment of the Boston Archdiocese
The Paulist Center Community offers members and all who gather a warm, spiritual home for progressive Catholics. In May 2006, the Paulist Center established the Paulist North American Office for Reconciliation “To develop a wide pastoral process to address the needs for dialogue and reconciliation in the Church today." HNMCP was asked to conduct a conflict assessment of the Boston Archdiocese and suggest approaches for reconciliation and healing.
Our work: Conduct a conflict assessment
Step 1: Research the history and organization of the Catholic Church, the background of recent Boston-specific troubles in the Archdiocese, and the theory and practice of dispute resolution in various contexts.
Step 2: Interview various stakeholders including parishioners, clergy, and inactive Catholics from across the Archdiocese to determine what conflicts exist and what resolution processes are already in place.
Final Product: A report detailing the findings of the research on conflict in the Boston Archdiocese and the results of the stakeholder interviews. The report also made recommendations for possible reconciliation and healing processes for the Catholic community. |
|
