conflict_mediation_prep v1.0.0

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name: conflict_mediation_prep description: Prepare to mediate a workplace conflict as a neutral third party: run a suitability gate before you accept the case, hold separate pre-meetings, separate agreed facts from disputed facts and interpretations, map each side's position, interests, stakes and alternative if talks fail, set a timed session structure with ground rules and a caucus rule, and capture a commitment log both sides accept and sign. Use when you have been asked to mediate between two colleagues, or are setting up that mediation, and need a prep pack and a sign off log, not negotiation advice for a party in the dispute.

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Conflict Mediation Prep

Purpose

Prepare a mediation you can run fairly: a case that should be mediated at all, a fact ledger neither side has to fight over, an interest map that shows where agreement is actually possible, a session plan with ground rules agreed in advance, and a commitment log that only contains what both sides accepted.

The mediator in this skill is a neutral third party. The mediator does not take sides, does not decide who was right or wrong, and cannot impose an outcome. Any agreement is made by the parties. That is the Acas definition in practice: mediation held by an impartial person, voluntary and confidential, looking at how the parties will work together in the future rather than judging the past. The Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School makes the same point about power: a mediator assists the parties in reaching their own agreement and has no power to impose one.

This skill covers preparation, the session structure, and the follow up record. It does not cover being a party in a negotiation (use a negotiation skill for that), giving feedback to your own report (use a feedback prep skill), or running a formal investigation, grievance, or disciplinary process.

Workflow

1. Run the suitability gate before you accept the case

Mediation is the wrong tool for some disputes, and accepting the wrong case harms both parties. Check all six conditions. Every one must pass.

• Both parties take part voluntarily. CIPD states this as the guiding principle: the parties enter the process voluntarily to seek and then implement an agreed solution. If one side is being sent, stop and say so.
• Nobody needs a decision about right or wrong. If a finding is required, for example possible criminal activity or a policy breach that must be determined, that is an investigation, not a mediation. Acas lists this as a case where mediation is not suitable.
• No serious unresolved allegation sits underneath. CIPD: mediation is not for use in situations such as serious harassment complaints, which are best addressed through formal procedures. Mediation may be considered later, voluntarily, after a formal process has dealt with the allegation, but it does not replace that process.
• Both parties can agree the things in scope themselves. If the fix needs a decision neither party owns, such as pay bands or headcount, either narrow the scope to what they do own and name the limit out loud, or route the case to whoever owns the decision.
• You can be neutral in fact, not just in intention. You have no line authority over either party, no prior involvement in the dispute, and no stake in the outcome. If neutrality would not be believed by both sides, for example you set their reviews, hand the case to someone else. A manager mediating their own reports is the common failure here.
• It is not a first resort for a problem the parties have never tried to talk about. Acas: people should be encouraged to speak to each other first. If they have not, offer a supported direct conversation before a full mediation, unless there is a reason direct talk is not safe or has already broken down.

If a condition fails, do not quietly mediate anyway. Tell whoever asked, in plain words, which condition failed and which route fits instead: direct conversation, manager action, HR advice, or the formal procedure. Keep a one line record of the gate result and the reason.

2. Hold a separate pre-meeting with each side

Meet each party alone before any joint session. Same length, same questions, same order, so neither side gets a better hearing than the other. Thirty minutes each is enough for a two party workplace case.

Ask, in this order:

• What happened, in your words?
• What do you want to come out of this?
• Why does that matter to you?
• What happens for you if nothing changes?
• What could you not accept in any agreement?
• What may I share with the other side from this meeting, and what stays with me?

Record the answers in an intake file like examples/worked-intake.json. The last question is not a courtesy. The default is that nothing from a pre-meeting is shared. A party can name specific points you may carry across, and only those points travel.

Also test safety and balance in each pre-meeting. If one party is afraid of the other, cannot speak freely in a joint session, or does not have the information the other side has, fix that before the session (separate rooms with caucus only, written statements, or a different process) or stop at the gate and route it formally. Do not rely on ground rules to fix a real power problem in the room.

3. Build the fact ledger: agreed, disputed, unknown, interpretation

Sort everything you heard into four kinds, and keep them apart on paper.

• Agreed facts: both parties confirm the statement, and an artifact backs it where one exists (an email, a log, a rota sheet, a timestamp). These are the only statements the session may treat as settled.
• Disputed facts: each side's version written side by side, in their own words, with a note of what evidence exists either way. Never average two versions into one sentence and never pick the more plausible one. The mediator does not settle disputed facts.
• Unknowns: questions nobody has checked yet. Record what would check them and who could check it. An unknown must not be used by either side as evidence in the session.
• Interpretations: claims about character, motive, or respect ("he does not respect the lead role", "she changes the rota to suit herself"). Rewrite each one as a neutral issue about a mechanism ("how a rota change gets confirmed") before it enters any session document. The worked case in references/worked-dispute.md shows three reframes in full.

Facts, in a mediation, are there to find the mechanism that produced the dispute. In the worked case the disputed fact about a verbal agreement never got a verdict. It did not need one, because both sides agreed a confirmation rule that makes the question impossible next time. Look for that move in every case: design the future so the disputed past stops mattering. Where a disputed fact cannot be designed around and the outcome turns on it, that is a sign the case needs a fact finding process, and it goes back to step 1.

4. Map positions, interests, stakes, and the walk away alternative

For each party record five things in the interest map.

• Position: what they say they want, in their words.
• Interests: why they want it. This is the core move from Fisher, Ury, and Patton in Getting to Yes, as taught by the Program on Negotiation: focus on interests, not positions. Positions lock people into corners. Interests are found by asking why this is important, what problem the person is trying to solve, and what concerns would need addressing for progress.
• Stakes: what it costs them if nothing changes. Stakes explain heat that positions alone do not.
• Alternative if there is no agreement: what this party will actually do next if the mediation fails, such as a formal grievance, a manager imposed rota, or refusing voluntary extras. In negotiation terms this is their best alternative to a negotiated agreement. You need it for honest reality testing in caucus, and each side's alternative stays in their own intake. It is not shared.
• Red lines: what they cannot accept. Red lines bound the option space early and stop you building options in the session that were never available.

Then compare the two maps. Mark interests that appear on both sides, in the same or different words: those are the test every option must pass. Mark tradeable differences, where one side cares a lot and the other a little: those are where agreement gets built. The output tool prints the same word matches automatically, but check by meaning yourself, because two people rarely use identical words for the same interest.

5. Build the prep pack with the tool

Put the gate result, pre-meeting answers, ledger, and maps into the intake JSON, then run:

python3 scripts/mediation_prep.py build intake.json -o prep/

The tool refuses to build if a party has no intake interests recorded, which is the tool form of a simple rule: no pre-meeting, no mediation. It writes four files:

• fact-ledger.md: agreed facts with evidence, disputed facts with both versions, unknowns, and interpretations with their neutral reframes.
• interest-map.md: position, interests, stakes, walk away alternative, and red lines per party, plus shared interests found in the same words.
• session-plan.md: the timed structure in step 6 and the ground rules in step 7.
• commitment-log-template.csv: the blank log the session will fill.

Read every output line before the session. The tool sorts what you gave it. It does not judge whether a fact is really agreed, and a ledger line that one side would not confirm must be moved to disputed by you, by hand, before the session.

6. Set the session structure and tell both sides in advance

Use the stage order that court and workplace mediation both follow, as set out by the US District Court mediation guidance and the Program on Negotiation: preparation, mediator opening, opening statements, joint discussion, private caucuses where needed, option building and negotiation, closure. Send both parties the structure, the length, who will be present, and the ground rules before the day, so nobody learns the process in the room.

For a two hour session the plan shares time roughly as: mediator opening 10 percent, opening statements 20 percent, joint discussion 25 percent, caucus 15 percent, option building 20 percent, closure 10 percent. Scale the shares to a shorter booking rather than dropping a stage. Practical points that decide whether the structure holds:

• Neutral place, or a video call with both parties on equal terms. Not one party's office, not a room the team can overhear.
• The mediator speaks first and last. In between, the mediator's job is the process: enforcing no interruptions during opening statements, keeping claims in the reframed issue words, parking anything that needs a decision mediation cannot give, and calling a break before one is needed rather than after.
• Caucus is a tool, not a default. Use it when emotion is blocking joint talk, or when a side needs to test an option or hear a reality check privately. The caucus rule is absolute: you carry nothing from a caucus to the other side without that party's clear permission, and you say so in the opening.
• Reality test in caucus, with questions, not verdicts: what happens next for you if there is no agreement today, what does that route cost you in time and in the working relationship, and does the option on the table leave you better off than that route. Use the party's own recorded alternative from step 4. Never invent a scarier alternative to push a settlement. A settlement pushed by fear of the mediator's invention is not voluntary, and it will not hold.
• Build options from the interest map, and invent before deciding. List options without judging them, then test each surviving option against the shared interests and against an objective criterion both sides accept, such as a written policy, a fairness count from the record, or a prior agreed practice. That is the Getting to Yes move of insisting on objective criteria, and it turns "whose plan wins" into "which plan passes the test we both set".

7. Draft the ground rules and get them agreed before substance

Read the rules out in the opening and get a clear yes from both parties before any substance. The tool prints this set in the session plan:

• Taking part is voluntary. Either party can pause the session or end their participation.
• The mediator is neutral, does not take sides, and does not decide the outcome.
• What is said in the session stays in the session, except the signed commitment log and any summary the parties agree in writing can be shared. Name the exceptions and their limits in the opening, because confidentiality with unstated limits is a promise you cannot keep. Acas: the mediator agrees with everyone involved what information can be shared outside the mediation and how, and if no agreement is reached, anything said during the mediation must be kept confidential and cannot be used in future procedures.
• No interruptions during opening statements.
• Talk about behaviour and impact, not character or motive. The mediator reframes person claims into issue claims.
• The caucus rule from step 6.
• The session looks at how the parties will work together from here. It does not decide who was right or wrong in the past.
• Either party can ask for a break at any time. The mediator can also call one.
• No recording unless both parties agree in advance.
• A commitment only enters the log when both parties accept it in the session and sign off on the wording.

Adapt wording to the case, but do not drop the voluntary rule, the no decision rule, the confidentiality rule with its stated exceptions, or the caucus rule. Those four are the process.

8. Capture commitments both sides accept, and sign them off in the room

An agreement in mediation is only worth what can be checked later. Every commitment needs six parts:

• One action in observable words (what will be done, in a form a third person could see done or not done).
• One owner, a named party, not "the team" and not both parties jointly.
• A due date, or a start date for a repeating action.
• A check date, set in the room, after the last due date.
• A check method: what will be looked at, and who will be in the room.
• Acceptance by both parties, in the session, on the exact wording.

Read each commitment back word for word before moving on. Change the wording in the room wherever either party asks, because the wording is the agreement. Then run:

python3 scripts/mediation_prep.py commitments commitments.json -o prep/

The tool refuses to write a log containing a commitment that is missing a field or that only one party accepted. That refusal is the point. A one sided promise extracted under room pressure is not a mediated agreement, and logging it as one teaches both parties that the process cannot be trusted. If a party will not accept a commitment, it does not go in the log. Record it instead as an open issue in the closure note.

Both parties sign the printed log in the room. The mediator signs as witness to the wording only. Share the log outside the room only as far as the confidentiality agreement in step 7 allows.

9. Close properly, with agreement or without one

With agreement: confirm the check date is in both diaries, confirm what summary, if any, each party may share and with whom, and thank both parties for specific things they did that made agreement possible, such as a concession or a reframed claim. Specific thanks, tied to behaviour, is more likely to be repeated than general praise.

Without agreement: write a short closure note holding only the agreed facts, the open issues in neutral words, and the next route both parties were told about. Do not include caucus content, offers, or admissions. Tell both parties, plainly, that what was said in the session stays confidential and is not carried into any later formal procedure, and that either of them may ask for a further session if they both want one. A failed mediation that keeps its confidentiality still leaves the formal route clean. One that leaks poisons it.

10. Run the check on the check date

On the check date, review each commitment against its check method, with both parties where the log says so. Mark each one kept, partly kept, or not kept, from the evidence the method names, not from impressions. For anything not kept, ask what got in the way before asking why the person failed: a commitment that broke on a mechanism (a rota system, a handover tool, an absence) gets a revised commitment, and one that broke on willingness goes back to step 1 for a fresh gate decision. Close the case in writing either way, and keep the file only as long as your organisation's policy requires.

Output Contract

• Gate record: the six suitability checks with pass or fail, the reason for any fail, and the route offered instead.
• Intake file: one JSON record per case in the format of examples/worked-intake.json, holding parties, facts, interpretations, and interests from the two pre-meetings.
• fact-ledger.md: agreed facts with evidence, disputed facts with both versions side by side, unknowns with what would check them, interpretations with neutral reframes.
• interest-map.md: per party, position, interests, stakes, walk away alternative, and red lines, plus the shared interests options must satisfy.
• session-plan.md: date, length, place, timed stage structure, and the ground rules to be read out and agreed.
• commitment-log.md and commitment-log.csv: only commitments with action, owner, due date, check date, check method, and acceptance by both parties, with a sign off block for both parties and the mediator as witness to the wording.
• Closure note: agreed facts, open issues in neutral words, the next route, and what may be shared outside the room. Required whether or not the session reached agreement.

Operating Rules

• You are the process, not a judge, an investigator, or either party's manager in the room. If you catch yourself deciding a disputed fact, stop and reframe it as an issue to design around.
• Symmetry is fairness made visible: same pre-meeting length and questions, same information in advance, same chance to speak first considered openly, same ground rules enforced on both sides. Any exception gets named and agreed by both parties, like the order of opening statements in the worked case.
• Confidentiality is the load bearing rule. Pre-meeting content, caucus content, and offers stay where they were said. The only things that travel are points a party names for travel, the signed commitment log, and a summary both parties agreed in writing.
• Never use one party's private information, red lines, or walk away alternative to pressure the other side, and never reveal that you hold it. Reality testing uses each party's own alternative with that party only.
• Do not mediate a case you have a stake in, a case about your own conduct, or a case between your own reports where your authority shapes what they can safely say. Hand it on and record why.
• Keep records factual, dated, and free of your opinions about either party. Write every line as if both parties will read it. Keep names to roles in prep files wherever the case allows it, and keep the file only as long as policy requires.
• This skill prepares an informal workplace mediation and a working agreement between the parties. It is not legal advice, not a settlement agreement, and not a substitute for your organisation's grievance, disciplinary, safeguarding, or HR processes. Where any of those apply, they take precedence and this skill stops at the gate.