During my internship at Bank of America, IT Department
During my internship years at Bank of America, IT Department, I worked with groups and successfully completed projects for which we (the team) received recognition and rewards from the senior managers. However, the course was not always easy as conflicts arose in the completion of a project where we were required to build a website using the PHP Language.
The Conflict
In the last month of my internship, a conflict arose and each of the group members was suggesting that we follow a PHP framework that was well known to themselves. I also suggested that we follow a framework that I was used to and we could not agree or settle on the best framework to follow in building the website.
A Creative Solution
Two days were wasted discussing which framework was the best to adopt for the website project. As the final solution to the problem, I suggested that we adopt a new PHP framework that none of the team members understood or used before. I gave several reasons for this action as it would be a learning experience for all team members to use a new PHP framework aside from the frameworks they already knew. I further encouraged them to fully participate in the building of the website as their knowledge would be quite helpful in the process. Further, we had a three-hour session to carefully listen to each other’s feedback about the suggestion and other improvements to the project to ensure that our project emerged the winner (Pachter 264). At this point, the team members were fully participating and contributing positively towards improving the strategies for building the website.
Resolving the Conflict
When the discussion ended, each member of the team promised to help whenever possible to ensure the successful completion of the project before the deadlines provided by our group supervisor. The conflict had now been resolved and in my opinion, the conflict that arose at the beginning of the project was constructive as it pushed the members to find a solution which further increased their participation in the project, as well as learning a new PHP framework for building websites. Examples of the strategies that greatly improved the resolution of the problem were setting time for brainstorming and deliberation about the new PHP framework (Riaz, and Junaid). Moreover, we managed to get input from all the group members before settling down to build the website.
Works Cited
Pachter, Wendy S. "Constructive Conflict Resolution". Analyses of Social Issues And Public Policy, vol 7, no. 1, 2007, pp. 263-266. Wiley-Blackwell, doi:10.1111/j.1530-2415.2007.00145.x.
Riaz, Muhammad Khan, and Fatima A. Junaid. "Workplace Conflict: Constructive or Destructive". SSRN Electronic Journal, 2013. Elsevier BV, doi:10.2139/ssrn.2247886.
