Getting to Yes: negotiate over interests, not positions
The sponsor demands delivery in March. You know May is realistic. If the negotiation is about March versus May, there are only three outcomes: you give in, they give in, or you meet at a compromise nobody really believes in. Roger Fisher and William Ury called this positional bargaining — and showed there is a better way.
Their 1981 book Getting to Yes grew out of the Harvard Negotiation Project, a research program on negotiation at Harvard University. It remains the standard work on negotiating without someone having to lose.
What does the research say?
Fisher and Ury call their method principled negotiation, and it rests on four ground rules. The first: separate the people from the problem. Be soft on the person and hard on the issue — the other party is not the opponent; the problem is.
The second, and best known: focus on interests, not positions. The position is what someone says they want ("delivery in March"); the interest is why ("I promised leadership something new for the trade fair"). Positions are often in direct conflict, while the interests behind them can be reconciled — perhaps a limited first version is enough for the fair, with full delivery in May.
The third rule is to invent multiple options before deciding: look for solutions that give both parties more, instead of immediately haggling over a single one. The fourth is to lean the decision on objective criteria — industry data, previous projects, independent assessments — so the outcome is decided on the merits rather than by who is most stubborn.
The book also gave us the concept of BATNA: Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement — your best option if the negotiation doesn't lead to a deal. Knowing your own, and sensing the other side's, tells you when an offer is worth accepting and when you're better off walking away.
What does this mean for you as a project manager?
A project manager's daily life is negotiation: scope against time, resources against quality, your project's needs against the line manager's. The next time you face an impossible demand, ask for the interest behind it: "Help me understand what the March date is meant to solve." The answer often opens paths the demand itself had closed.
Prepare your BATNA before important meetings. What do you do if the resource negotiation with the line manager stalls — escalate to the sponsor, change the plan, bring in contractors? A well-thought-out alternative makes you calmer in the room and protects you from accepting bad terms out of sheer fatigue.
When the discussion heats up around a change request: propose shared criteria before choosing a solution. "Can we agree to judge the options by their effect on the delivery date and on risk?" moves the conversation from arm wrestling to problem solving. And remember the first ground rule throughout: you can be rock solid on the issue and warm toward the person at the same time — that combination is what keeps the relationship intact for the next negotiation.
How to practice this
Asking about interests is easy to plan and hard to remember when your pulse rises. In Project-simulator you negotiate with AI counterparts who squeeze you on time, money and scope — and the feedback uses your own lines to show whether you explored interests or just defended a position. Try it free for a week and walk into your next real negotiation with the method in your muscle memory.
In Project-simulator you practice these conversations against an AI counterpart and get feedback grounded in research like this.
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