Hi, I'm Julie Tietz, and welcome to Conflict Resolution, putting the pieces together. Today, we're going to have a overview of conflict analysis and conflict mapping. Conflict analysis is really useful in coming up or seeing a really complete picture of a conflict, and it's usually considered a consulted model of conflict. So we're having somebody come in and assessing the conflict from the outside.
And when this consultant or intervener comes in, they look at the participants, so who's involved in the conflict, and the history of the conflict, the dynamics that are involved within the conflict, and again, to really generate a complete picture and understanding of the conflict as a whole. And ways that we would utilize conflict analysis would be in areas such as long-term and prolonged conflict, so conflict that has been going on for a significant period of time, and also, when there is multi-parties. It's not like your typical mediation where we have party A and party B, but there could be party A, B, C, D, E, even, in these types of conflicts that we would want to utilize a conflict analysis model for.
It's also useful to use in very intense conflicts, as well as very complex or complicated conflicts. And so when we have these types of conflicts, we are going to want to utilize a conflict analysis process rather than your typical conflict resolution process. So we want to assess the conflict before we actually get into the process.
We then will go through a conflict analysis process when we determine that the type of conflict is appropriate and useful for a conflict analysis. So the first thing we're going to do is we're going to identify those stakeholders, so the parties involved within this conflict. Then we're going to want to gather some factual information. So we're going to conduct some individual interviews. We're going to interview each of these stakeholders individually.
And then, again, we're going to gather the facts, so each party's perception and facts on how the conflict started, what their interests are, how they feel about the conflict, and their perceptions of the other parties. And sometimes, when we're gathering this factual information about the history and development of the conflict, we can see that there are going to be disagreements and different interpretations about the specific facts and different emotional reactions to the specific events of the conflict. So we want to make sure that we get all of those facts and that information down.
And once we have gathered all of the facts, and identified the stakeholders, and gone through our interviews, we can then start to map out the big picture of the conflict through some conflict mapping. And once we've finished our conflict mapping, we can then show and present our analysis or map to the parties to be sure that there is an agreement upon what's happening. And then we can have a joint meeting, and that's where all of the parties in the conflict are present, and we can start the process, if the parties are willing, with the intervener present.
So again, we're going to present our analysis or map to the parties to really offer them some clarification about the bigger picture, and maybe they can see some other perceptions, or differing viewpoints, or maybe joint interests that they were unaware of. And also, it gives us an opportunity as an intervener to check for accuracy, to make sure that we didn't miss anything, and that the parties are in agreement with the map that we have laid out for them. And then, at this point, we can initiate that joint meeting. So if everyone's in agreement with their perspective, perhaps, maybe not the other party's perspective, because we are still in conflict, and there may be some disagreement about certain facts, but if generally, everyone's in agreement, then we can initiate or facilitate that joint meeting where we have the parties come together and go through the process of going through their conflict step-by-step and seeing what we can do to help them come up with some possible solutions and maybe a lasting resolution to the conflict at hand.
So a conflict map may look something like this. Could be simple chart where we have the parties, causes. We can make as many columns as we want, just so we can get a clearer idea of what the situation is happening for the parties involved. We also could do a map similar to this. There really is no wrong or right way to go about doing this, just to be sure that we have all the information down that we need and it's clear so when we present it to the parties, they can have a really complete picture and understanding.
Let's look at our key points here on the analysis process. So when we conduct a conflict analysis, we're really getting a complete picture of the history, dynamics, and other factors that are involved in the conflict. And when we do an analysis, it's appropriate for multi-party conflicts, long-term, conflicts, and complex and very intense conflicts.
A little bit different than our typical conflict resolution process that typically involves two parties. And when we go through the analysis process, we're going to identify stakeholders and conduct interviews so we can gather facts about the conflict history, perceptions, and attitudes. And once we have done this, we can conduct some conflict mapping, and we can present this map to the parties to see if they're in agreement for its accuracy, and at that point, we can initiate that joint meeting where the parties can meet in person with the conflict intervener to discuss the issues of their conflict and maybe come up with some solutions or a resolution.
Here are your key terms before we go. Feel free to pause and look at them a little bit closer. Thanks for taking the time out to view this, and I can't wait to catch you again next time.