Conflict Map

This tool shows how many people in a group are involved in a conflict and visualizes the relationships between them.

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1,5-2 hours

room, paper and pens for presentation and discussion

15-35 people

conflict management, analyzing, critical thinking

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Related:

• Social Skills

Goal

• Identify all groups or persons, that are directly or indirectly involved in the conflict
• Present the conflict situation graphically
• Clear up the conflict partie's relations to the problem and each other
• Show where power is situated in that conflict context

Steps

1. The trainer explains the “conflict map” model with a concrete example.

2. In working groups the participants choose a conflict situation, visualize it with the model and discuss the following questions:

- How are the persons related to each other?

- Which persons are directly involved in the conflict, which indirectly?

- Where lies the core cause for the conflict?

- Which relations can we restore, strengthen or create for minimizing the conflict escalation?

- Which persons can positively contribute to solutions?

- Can we cooperate with all person? Who shoud be involved in a conflict resolution? Whom would you approach individually?

Reflection

• Did the model help to understand the conflict? What became more clear?
• Did the model help to find a strategy to solve the conflict?
• What strategies did you find?

Reference

• Aliow, Mohamed, Auma, Emmie, Ayuko, Bonita (2012): How to guide to conflict sensitivity. Available at: Conflict Sensitivity Consortium

Matthias Haberl

Project manager for the Austrian development organisation Südwind, freelance trainer, facilitator and author of handbooks and on Competendo.