WINWIN When Negotiating

Last night I was at a BCS Young Professionals Group meeting at the BCS offices in Southampton Street, London. The meeting was part of a 'SkillCentre' series being run with the help of a consultant called Anthony Rees facilitating, and the subject last night was 'Negotiation Skills'.

The session itself was excellent, culminating in groups coming up with a simple mnemonic to remember some basic concepts for negotiating. The group I was in came up with the mnemonic 'winwin':

What do you want

Investigate feasibility

Note it down

Walk in their shoes

Identify tactics

Negotiate!

Another group came up with the 'winning' mnemonic of 'KPMG', which raised a chuckle. I'm not sure I can remember it exactly, but it went something like:

Know

Prepare

Maximum (& minimum)

Goals

Personally, I found it memorable but less useful. But that's probably just me being biased. Following the main session there was a chance to network over wine and nibbles which was just as valuable as the session itself. And kudos to the BCS for putting on a nice Chilean Merlot :)