5 Tools to Manage Conflict on Agile Software Teams: Developer Clashes with Project Manager

In this episode of the Conflict Skills Podcast, Simon Goode analyzes a workplace conflict between a software developer and a project manager working on upgrading a CRM for an important client. Simon breaks down the situation using five conflict categories—relationship, data, interests, values, and structure—offering practical frameworks and strategies for understanding and managing such clashes. The episode is packed with actionable advice for listeners facing similar challenges in their own work environments.

TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 Developer vs. Manager Conflict Escalates

03:54 Workplace Conflict Dynamics Explained

07:53 "Navigating Interests, Data, Values"

10:15 "Mitigating Team Conflict Structurally"

14:25 Improving Relationships Through Clarity

17:06 Resolving Conflicts Through Understanding

20:18 Navigating Authority and Conflict Dynamics

23:56 "Adjusting Team Communication Structure"

27:23 Conflict Insights and Resolutions

Transcript

0:03

Well, hello and welcome back to the Conflict Skills Podcast. I'm your host, professional mediator Simon Goode. I set up this podcast to provide free resources and tools for dealing with conflict. So if that sounds like the kind of thing that's useful for you, please consider pressing subscribe. Today, I'm going to be analyzing a case study and explaining some of the different frameworks that we can apply to identify which drivers are contributing and therefore develop options for responding. So here's a bit of information about the background of this fictional company. Obviously, it's going to represent a number of real clients that I've worked with over the years, and there's a number of different parallels that could be drawn. So Techflow Solutions is a mid-sized software company based in Sydney, Australia, specializing in custom CRM platforms for small businesses. The company employs 45 people across development, project management, sales and support teams. It prides itself on agile methodologies, collaborative culture, and flexible hybrid work arrangements. So there are two different individuals involved in the conflict, Alex and Jordan. Alex is the senior software developer, 34 years old, and Jordan is the project manager, 29 years old. So Alex is actually doing the work and Jordan is steering the project, making sure that things are all on track, etc. Alex has been with Techflow, the company, for 4 years. He's known for his creative problem-solving and deep technical expertise in backend systems. Alex prefers working autonomously, often diving deep into code late at night or during long focused blocks. He values innovation and dislikes what he calls unnecessary meetings. His performance reviews consistently praise his technical output but note occasional missed deadlines and interpersonal clashes with colleagues. Jordan is the project manager, 29 years old, who joined the company about 18 months ago after a successful stint at a larger consulting firm. She's highly organised, data-driven, and focused on timelines, stakeholder communication, and team accountability. Jordan believes clear processes and regular check-ins keep projects on track, She's well-liked by leadership for her ability to deliver projects on budget. So a reasonably meticulous, detail-oriented person, similarly to Alex, but they're obviously going to have a different scope of focus given their different roles. So this is a bit of background to the conflict. The tension began on Project Orion, a 6-month CRM upgrade for a major client. Alex was the lead developer responsible for the core integration module. Jordan was assigned project manager. Initial friction surfaced in the second sprint. Jordan scheduled daily 15-minute standup meetings and required detailed progress updates in the project management tool

that they were using, Jira, by 9: 3:03

00 AM each day. Alex viewed these as micromanagement and often submitted updates late or in minimal detail, preferring to, as he put it, just get the work done. When Alex delivered a complex feature 2 days late due to an unexpected technical challenge, which he solved quite elegantly, Jordan publicly flagged the delay in the team's Slack channel and asked for a written explanation so the client stays informed. Alex responded defensively in the same channel, "I fixed a critical bug that would have crashed the whole system." "If we spent less time in meetings, I could deliver faster." From that point on, the conflict has escalated. Alex began ignoring Jordan's messages for hours and stopped attending optional sync meetings. Jordan started documenting every interaction and looping in their shared manager, feeling Alex was undermining her authority. Team members noticed the cold atmosphere during standups Productivity on Orion slowed as other developers avoided getting caught in the crossfire. So what do you make of that case study? Are there some similarities or parallels to actual, actual experiences that you've gone through? Or maybe there's a few bell ringing, bells ringing about stories that you've been told from friends and family and that kind of thing. For me as a workplace mediator, these kind of situations are incredibly common. And it's not that uncommon for there to be a number of different factors that are influencing the conflict. And for me, I find it quite helpful still to think about the 5 types of conflict as the initial framework that I often use for analyzing conflict. So there's 5 different categories that I consider as different drivers for conflict. The relationship itself, the interactions that go on between me and the other person, or Jordan and Alex, if in this case, if I was a senior manager. Then we've got the data. These are the facts. This is what was agreed to. This is what was expected. So that could be down to things like job descriptions or who's agreed to what by email, et cetera. Even the deadlines, there's the potential for a bit of misunderstanding or crossed wires to exist as to how acceptable missing a deadline is, for example. Someone might think that just getting the work done is the priority like Alex does in this situation. And someone else might focus on a longer-term risk reduction and sustainability. Like maybe part of the reason that Jordan is requiring these frequent updates is because she's worried that Alex might leave the company and then midway through a project, it would be very difficult to get somebody else up to speed unless there's been reasonably detailed notes and updates provided. So it could be about how often should these updates be made? If Jordan thought that Alex had agreed to attend these meetings, then that would be what we would consider a data conflict. Maybe something's changed behind the scenes. Maybe they've forgotten it. Maybe they've changed their minds. Like, there's a number of different factors that can contribute to that. But it's data conflict when we disagree about the facts. So that's different to the relationship conflict, the reciprocal patterns that go on between us. That first category, relationship conflict, would be things like the impulse to say, "I told you so, you should have listened to me," or, "I'm so sick of the way they keep doing this." Alex viewing this as micromanagement, for example, would be a way that he might be experiencing the relationship. And then he pushes back, provides minimal information, for example, and then Alex escalates by CCing in her manager. So that's what I mean about those different patterns that go on between us. And that's quite separate to the actual facts and the actual expectations that we have for one another. The third category that I like to consider is what's broadly called interests. This is basically what I want versus what you want. Alex will obviously have a different set of KPIs to Jordan. So there could be like formal tangible differences in interest. But simply belonging to different teams would mean that they're going to have different priorities. And so there's these differences just by role or areas in a business that might have different priorities and areas of focus. But interest conflict could be due to smaller things as well. Like maybe Alex really wants the people in the team to think that they're a good contributor. And so when Jordan sends this email, basically flagging the fact that there's been a delay, that gets in the way of their interest because all of a sudden they're worried that other people might not think that they're a good provider. From Alex's perspective, she has a different interest. She probably wants to mitigate risk. She probably wants to really make sure that projects are delivered on time because she has the potential for a promotion or some kind of a bonus arrangement. Like, we don't really know at the end of the day what's driving these different interests, but it's what I want versus what you want. That's different to the data. That's different to the agreements that we've made, the job descriptions, et cetera. We could decide just to deal with the conflict at an interest level, which would be, for example, Jordan saying to Alex, "Look, what do you need from me for you to provide more information in those updates?" The fourth category that we could consider are what are called values. This is the definitions that we often label one another with. Like Alex views this amount of requests for updates as micromanagement. Is it micromanagement? I mean, obviously Jordan probably would say no if you were to ask her. So whose definition of micromanagement do we use? Well, I suppose the challenge with value conflict is that we don't really know. All of our perception is driven by previous experiences that we've had. So what one person considers micromanagement might be perfectly normal to somebody else. These are subjective labels, and ultimately they're in the eye of the perceiver. So we could choose to deal with the conflict at the value level, But it's usually not about changing the other person's underlying values. That's very, very difficult. They've often developed these values over basically their whole life from their early experiences in childhood, the way that they were brought up, their family background, etc., as well as all of the previous work experiences that they've had up until this point. I think often the best, better strategy is to normalize the difference. It seems like to you this is coming across as micromanagement. 'Look, that's not my intention. I can see where you're coming from. On my end, this is what I'm focused on.' So one person might really value autonomy, for example, being able to work independently. Somebody else might really value team cohesiveness, or they might really value diligent, detailed data capture to prevent any potential problems coming up when a single person on the project leaves. They might value budget, for example, more than timelines or vice versa. So there's always going to be different elements that we think are important based on these underlying values. And often we can just describe the difference and then set up a conversation talking about options as a way of responding. And then finally, we've got structure. These are the structural elements that contribute to the conflict. As the senior manager here, there might be some options for changing the structure. Maybe separating Jordan and Alex if they're just butting heads. Maybe there's a different team that one of them could move to. Maybe having very clear delineations about what is to be expected in the 15-minute stand-up meetings and what's over the top. Or if somebody chooses not to come, what's the level of detail that you need in a written update? So we could think about the structure for all of these different elements. How frequently are the updates given? Who's chairing the meetings? How do the meetings work? Is there an agenda sent out ahead of time? Is it kind of just the chance for everybody to share what they're working on at the moment? And so we might be able to mitigate the negative effects of conflict or sometimes prevent it from coming up altogether simply by focusing on the structure. So if we think about this example from Jordan and Alex, what jumps out at you? Where would you start? Obviously, there's layers of the relationship conflict going on, right? Like, there's not a whole lot of goodwill that exists between the two of them. For me, it's a very common situation that I come into as a workplace mediator. Two people really don't trust each other. And trust is a very difficult thing to rebuild. We can't really decide to trust someone. I mean, trust is something that we feel to some extent. I might be willing to give you the benefit of the doubt or be willing to extend you this much flexibility, etc. But I'm not really deciding that I can or can't trust you. That's something that I don't have a whole lot of control over. So when we're asking someone else to trust us, what are we actually asking them to do? I suppose it's that. It's to give this level of flexibility or to give us a chance to prove ourself or to set up this structure and see how it goes. And if needed, we might tweak it and improve the communication or increase the frequency of our meetings or something similar. But it's like, could we give this a chance? Could we give this a go? Now, obviously, for Jordan and Alex, they probably don't want to give anything a go. They probably loathe each other at the moment. And so the idea of what would help the two of you to build trust probably is going to come across as potentially even quite insulting, let alone not make a lot of sense for them in terms of their priorities. So I often say to people, look, it doesn't sound like there's a lot of trust that exists between the two of you at the moment. There's been a number of interactions that have gone pear-shaped, and it sounds like there's been a few areas of crossed wires. It's also possible that you've got different expectations of one another. There might be some chance to reach a common ground there, but not always. We are all going to have some differences between us and the people that we work with as well. So instead of talking about trust— could the two of you trust each other? Jordan, can't you trust Alex more? 'Alex, can't you trust Jordan's intentions more?' I think a better option would be to say, 'Look, there isn't much trust between the two of you at the moment.' In my experience, what helps to rebuild trust are very clear sets of expectation that are then followed through with. When someone says, 'This is what I'm going to do,' and then they actually do it, that's often when we begin to trust the other person. And having a high level of detail involved in who's going to be doing what by when, etc. It means that we've got more chances for success stories. I did all of those 5 things that I said that I was going to do today, rather than just focusing on a single thing where there's a point of difference. So I would acknowledge that there probably isn't much trust between the 2 of them. I might ask them individually, what kind of a working relationship would you like to have with one another? You don't need to be mates. You don't need to be friends with the people that you work with. But we also can't have people in the same team who aren't able to communicate effectively. It's my concern for the project itself, but also for the way that it affects the other people that are involved. So what would be a realistic, workable, business-like relationship? What would that look like between the two of you? Lowering the goalposts to some extent. I'm not saying, I really want a family here. It's really important that we all get along. I'm kind of saying to them, what's the bare minimum that you need from each other? For this relationship to begin to improve? And I love those questions, the coaching framework, obviously, where we start with the goal. What kind of a relationship would work between the two of you? What would need to be different? What would they need to do differently? And what would you be prepared to do differently as a result? So that's the relationship layer. And frankly, that might be the point that I start with the two of them. You could ask them about the impact on the conflict and how that maybe has even taken a toll at a personal level, whether there are other challenges that they're dealing with at work that might be all stacking on and having a bit of a cumulative effect in terms of the level of stress, or if this is a single issue in isolation, how other people are responding, who else might be involved, et cetera. There's quite a lot of different options that we can explore just focusing on that layer of the relationship. But the second category that I mentioned, data conflict, is often the point where we are able to implement a point of difference. Like, could we get clear about what is an acceptable update and what is not, what's not good enough? Could we get clear around, are these meetings actually optional or not? Because it seems like you're upset about the fact that I'm not attending regularly. It's like, can we clarify the data? Can we get on the same page moving forward? It sounds like you're expecting me to do this. Actually, that's not something that I believe that we'd agreed to, but I suppose potentially there's a bit of crossed wire there. Could you clarify for me what specifically you're wanting me to do and by when? And where does that come from? Is that an email chain that, that was there between the two of us or something that we agreed to in Slack? Can you help me understand that perspective? We need to tread a little bit carefully when one or both of them are a little bit wrong. Like, you don't want to jam it down their throat and make them think that, that you think they're a jerk or that you think they're an idiot or not professional or not capable. Obviously, this is going to trigger a large amount of defensiveness. Usually it's about normalizing it. Okay, it sounds like we've got different takes on this. Can you walk me through that perspective and what's underlying that for you? So instead of talking to Alex about what is and isn't micromanagement, maybe an approach to dealing with the data conflict would be to clarify the level of detail needed or what would be an acceptable situation for Alex to miss those optional meetings and when would he be expected to come? Like, maybe Jordan is very upset about the fact that Alex is missing them completely. But Alex thinks that he's not doing anything wrong because they're clearly marked as optional. So that would be an example of clarifying the data, clarifying the facts. What are we prepared to do and what do we need from the other person in response? The third category that I mentioned was the interest conflict. And this is where we begin to think about what each of these people want. Well, what do you think Jordan wants? What do you think Alex wants? For me, there's probably a level of autonomy in terms of Alex's priorities. But how come? What does he want in terms of his career? What else is going on in his life outside of work this last 3 months or this last 6 months? We could consider all of those different elements as we talk to Alex about effectively what's in it for him. What would he be prepared to do? And maybe there's some incentive that you could offer. Like, if Alex can provide more detail in these meetings, you will consider him for this promotion or give him a roster day off once a month or give him a pay rise or let him be in charge of the next big project that's coming through, have the corporate box seats at the big sporting event that the client's given them as a way of saying thank you. All of those different things would be options that we could offer Alex in return for him doing what we want him to do. And the same approach could be taken with Jordan. It would be talking to them about where do they want to be in their career over the next 3 years? How are things at the moment? How is this project in amongst all of the other work that they're doing right now? So that would help us to clarify what are each of their different priorities. Maybe they're not at all concerned about a performance management process, or maybe that's something that they're really quite anxious about. Maybe they're not really concerned about the money, or maybe they're not really concerned about the time. Like, they're happy to work long hours if they can get the job done. But what really grinds their gears is when they get the micromanagement treatment from their boss, for example. So it would be clarifying what each of them want, what difference that would make for them if they got it, and what level of flexibility they might be prepared to give in return. Now, it might be none. The challenge with interest conflict is that in some situations there's no magic wand that we can wave. Maybe Alex and Jordan both want to be the lead of the project. Well, only one of them is going to get to do that. Maybe both Alex and Jordan want to have the corporate seat at the sporting event. Well, there's only one spot that's available. Sometimes there's no magic wand that we can wave. There's no quick fix. It might just be about, look, I get where you're coming from. I can understand that perspective and why you've made that request. At this stage, that's not something that we can agree to. Or at this stage, there's no flexibility about that. I'm sorry. That's not something that we're going to be able to do. The fourth category that I mentioned of values is one that's quite relevant here, isn't it? Like Alex views all of this conflict as micromanagement, and he might therefore be considering Jordan to be overstepping the mark or to be out of line in some way. Whereas Jordan would have the opposite perspective on Alex, of course. She would view him as being unprofessional or not being a team player, not taking the job seriously. How she says he's trying to undermine her authority, there's probably some underlying value there that you should listen to the project manager who's driving the project, or you should be prepared to give this level of detail given the fact that if you leave, the project still needs to go ahead with minimal delays, etc. So these are all these perspectives that they've developed over their life, basically. And I don't think there's a whole lot of benefit in trying to change either of those. It might be saying something to Alex, like, what would Jordan need to do differently so that you didn't feel like she was micromanaging you? Or you could say to Jordan, how have you responded when that issue came up in the past that Alex was missing meetings? And she might say, I've CC'd my boss in, I've looped him in, I've tried to Increase the stakes, increase the pressure a little bit. And then we could say to Jordan, so what is it about skipping those meetings that's causing so much impact for you? And it's possible that there's actual practical concerns, but it might be more of an emotional feeling that Jordan's having. Like a lot of the time, people are concerned about having their authority undermined. It's not a purely data-focused conflict. It's not just about the consequences for the project. It's also that I want to be taken seriously. I need a level of control when it's my job and I'm responsible for the project itself. So that might be a value that she has is that, look, Alex, too bad, too sad. I don't particularly care if you're the kind of person that likes attending these morning meetings. They're not optional. They're mandatory. Or this is the kind of information that I need in terms of an update. I am happy to talk about some flexibility in terms of you attending the meetings. Or instead of doing it daily, maybe we could do it a couple of times a week at specific times that we agree to, for example. For me, I can't work effectively as a project manager when I don't know where everything is up to. It's possible that when Jordan flagged the delay, that that was another example of value conflict. Like Jordan put it in the Slack channel and effectively demanded an explanation as to why. And that's when Alex said something like, If we spent less time in meetings, I could deliver faster. Alex might experience that as being completely out of line and over the top. Maybe he feels betrayed by the fact that Jordan's putting this negative information about him in a public channel, or maybe he feels like she's accusing him of something and so he therefore needs to defend himself. These are the kind of values that I'm talking about that emerge in this value conflict. You shouldn't be doing that. You should be doing that. So there's the big scale things like what's micromanagement and what's not. But you'll also see smaller scale types of value conflict as well. Like, is it okay to miss all of the optional meetings or should you try and get to at least one a month? Is it okay to answer your phone when it rings during a meeting? If you don't have a whole lot of information to update, is it acceptable just to say same as last week? Or is there an expectation to provide a higher level of detail? These are all areas where we're going to have different perspectives on, and often just normalizing that and naming it and saying, look, it seems like we're coming at this from different directions. Could we organize a time to get on the same page, sit down and talk it through? That would be really helpful for me. A lot of the time when we can clarify, those differences in values don't emerge as significant as they were initially. Whereas if we just look at he thinks he's being micromanaged and she thinks that she's not, well, there's not a whole lot of options that we have for dealing with it, is there? So I've talked about relationship, data, interest, and value. The final type of conflict that I often consider is structure. Now, there's a lot of options for levers that we could tweak when it comes to this case study. Thinking about Jordan and Alex, maybe they could change something about the structure of the way that updates are given. Like instead of having 15-minute standup meetings, maybe each person on the team records a 30-second or 1-minute update on their phone and then upload it onto the shared page where you can watch everyone else's updates when you've got time to do it and when that's enough of a priority. Or maybe Jordan could consider a template for the updates, like 4 questions that the staff have to answer instead of just allowing them complete freedom into what they write and how much, etc. We could consider clarifying the expectations in terms of the structure, like approximately 250 words is what I'm looking for, or I'm hoping that each person in the team can speak for a few minutes just to give a bit of an update as to what's going on for them this week and what's coming next. So we could change the structure around the updates. We could schedule more meetings. We could schedule less meetings. If these meetings have been going really pear-shaped, I would consider using a different structure, like maybe having an agenda that's distributed ahead of time or information that's emailed out rather than just expecting everybody to understand it reading it on the spot on the day. We could change the people who are involved in the meetings. Having a senior person involved might mean that Alex is on his best behavior, so Jordan doesn't actually need to do a whole lot else to deal with the conflict. Just changing the structure might have the desired effect. Or maybe we could change something in terms of the incentive structure. Like, we could talk to Alex about if the project is delivered without any delays, this is what the benefit would be to him. A dollar bonus, flexibility in his work arrangements, some public recognition. It would depend to some extent what's relevant to Alex. But changing the structure is often one of the best ways that we can address conflict. It's not necessarily resolving the conflict, I don't think, but I suppose I would put that in the category of conflict management. We want to mitigate the negative impacts and try to prevent it as much as possible moving forward. But what do you think about that way of thinking about conflict using those 5 different factors? The relationship, data, interest, value, and structure. Are there situations of conflict that you're dealing with where that could be a potential framework that could be applied? Or maybe you're supporting other people who are dealing with conflict, and you could ask them some questions to clarify what else might be going on, which other factors could be contributing here. And for me as a mediator, I find this, if nothing else, is incredibly helpful for brainstorming. Just using those 5 different categories and thinking about one option that we could consider for each often starts our mind thinking about other potential options that might work. And therefore, I think we tend to come at conflict, we come at the issue itself with quite a future-focused, solution-focused mindset. It's like, let's find a way to manage this effectively moving forward. Whereas if all we're focused on is a single element, like just the relationship conflict, they are a complete jerk. I hate working with them. I'm bloody sick of them. Or if we just focus on the data, they've missed their deadline. They're expecting too much from me in terms of updates. I never agreed to this. Or maybe it's interests, like, "I'm needing to stay back late every day at work because there's all these bloody meetings that are constantly taking up all of our productive hours." Or maybe it's values, like what do they specifically think the other person is doing wrong or should be doing. Or it's thinking about structure. My hope is that if you're dealing with a very similar situation, then some of those examples that I've talked through could be useful. But even if you're dealing with different situations involving different types of conflict, there might be some elements that you could transfer and apply there as well. How does that all resonate with you? I'd love to hear from you. The best way to get in touch is by email. It's podcast@simongood.com. If you'd like to learn a bit more about me, my background, the services that I offer, you can visit my website, simongood.com. And otherwise, thank you very much for listening. Hopefully see you again in a future episode of the Conflict Skills Podcast. Fast. Bye for now.