Negotiation Exercises
Multiparty

Architectural Design Firm
Authors: Linda Palmer & Leigh Thompson
Source: DRRC

Three-member cross-functional teams negotiate the design of a house, in which a client specifies required features and a limited budget. Each negotiator is assigned a role: the structural expert, the finish expert, or the land expert. Each expert is given confidential information about pricing for various options they can include in the design plan, a confidential profit schedule (indicating how much profit they will make if their option is included in the design), and special bonus information involving integrative tradeoffs. The main task of the group is to determine the set of options, beyond those required by the client, to be included in the design for the house. The exercise involves three dependent measures: perceptions of group members' competitiveness, joint profit (and integrative tradeoffs), and equality of resource distribution.

Preparation: 25 minutes
Negotiation: 60 minutes

Best Stuff on Earth
Authors: Holly A. Schroth, Damien Dirringer, John Hudson, Nadir Hussain, Michael McLaren, Kim Roseman & James Slipe
Source: DRRC

This is a multi-party (7) multi-issue negotiation intended to simulate the negotiations that occur in top management teams. The exercise is based on the buy-out of Snapple Beverages by Quaker Oats.

Preparation: 25-30 minutes
Negotiation: 90-120 minutes

The Commodity Purchase
Author: Leonard Greenhalgh
Source: Creative Consensus, Inc.

This simulation is best run with six participants in each group, but can be run with fewer. It involves a seller who has 100,000 pheasant eggs and up to five buyers who need the eggs for very different purposes. If the eggs are simply auctioned to the highest bidder, the seller achieves a suboptimal outcome. Combinations of buyers can pool their purchasing power and instead of competing, collaborate to share the produce.

Preparation: 15 minutes
Negotiation: 30-45 minutes

Federated Science Fund
Author: Elizabeth A. Mannix
Source: DRRC

This is a three-person coalition exercise. The exercise manipulates the power of the players, the preferred distribution norm, and the level of expected future interaction, creating a tension between allocation based on power versus distribution norms. The expectation of future interaction further complicates the choice of whether or not to form two-way or three-way coalitions.

Preparation: 10 minutes
Negotiation: 45 minutes

FG&T Towers
Authors: Rand Boyers & Stephen B. Goldberg; teaching notes by Stephen B. Goldberg, Tiffany Galvin & Jeanne M. Brett
Source: DRRC

This is a multi-issue, multi-party qualitative negotiation. The parties, all law partners, must decide whether or not the partnership should purchase their office building. This exercise can be used to discuss common and specific interests in the context of negotiation.

Preparation: 60 minutes
Negotiation: 60-90 minutes

Galbraith and Company
Author: Don Moore
Source: DRRC

Galbraith and Company is a multiparty, multi-issue negotiation in which coalitions typically control the outcome. It provides the opportunity to discuss group decision making from a negotiation perspective and the effect of coalition formation on the outcomes of group decision making. There are five parties to this case. Note the Galbraith exercise has many features similar to FG&T Towers (see above) by Stephen Goldberg. An instructor would not want to plan to use both exercises in the same class. However, it might be interesting to use the short coalitions exercise Federated Science Fund (see above) prior to negotiating Galbraith to give students skills and familiarity with coalitions.

Preparation: 30 minutes
Negotiation: 60 minutes

Harborco
Authors: Denise Madigan & Thomas Weeks; teaching notes by Jeanne M. Brett
Source: Harvard’s Program on Negotiation (PON), DRRC version

This is a multi-party, multi-issue quantified negotiation. Harborco wishes to develop a deep-water port on the eastern seaboard. Attending the meeting are representatives of the governor, unions, environment, and other parts of the federal government. Most solutions are Pareto optimal. It is useful for discussing leadership of such groups, and the role of the party trying to keep the status quo.

Preparation: 60 minutes
Negotiation: 90 minutes

Newport Girl Doll Company Authors: Holly A. Schroth, Grace Chen, Christine Hamilton, Mary Lee, Monica Lin, Johnny Tong & Jason Wu Source: DRRC

The exercise Newport Girl Doll Company is a multiparty, multi-issue negotiation designed to simulate negotiations that occur in top management teams. The exercise is based on the real life competition in the doll market to capture the "tween" market. Because the exercise focuses on the new "promiscuous" dolls being marketed to the tweens, it provides an opportunity to involve issues of business ethics and social responsibility. The exercise provides a basis for discussing personal ethical standards and their impact on negotiation. In addition, the exercise helps participants examine how to manage new information during a negotiation, especially when it impacts one's own interests and BATNA. Finally, the exercise helps to illustrate the dynamics of a multiparty, multi-issue negotiation when self-interests may conflict with the goals of the organization.

Negotiation: 60 minutes
Debrief: 45-60 minutes

SHARC
Authors: Kimberly A. Wade-Benzoni, Ann E. Tenbrunsel & Max H. Bazerman
Source: DRRC

SHARC is a four-party social dilemma. It is based on the real-life crisis in the northeastern fishing industry. It illustrates how asymmetry in interests and outcomes causes different interpretations of fairness. In this exercise, harvesting judgments are biased in an egocentric, self-serving manner.

Preparation 30 minutes
Negotiation: 60 minutes

SHARC: Competitive Decision Making Version
Authors: Kimberly A. Wade-Benzoni, Ann E. Tenbrunsel & Max H. Bazerman
Source: DRRC

The Competitive Decision Making version of SHARC is an asymmetric social dilemma. The numbers are not the same as the regular version of SHARC. There is no solution in the Competitive Decision Making version of SHARC that allows parties to cut the harvest to the sustainable level of 2,500 metric tons and to maintain their profits. This is a much harder exercise than the generic version of SHARC and we recommend it for more advanced MBA students. The teaching notes explain clearly the differences in the two versions of the exercise.

Preparation 30 minutes
Negotiation: 60 minutes

Social Services
Author: Denise Madigan
Source: Harvard’s Program on Negotiation (PON), DRRC version

DRRC's version of Social Services is a three-party, scorable exercise set in the public service sector. Resources available depend on whether the parties form a two or three-party coalition. Parties also must determine the proportion of resources each will get.

Preparation: 10 minutes
Exercise: 45 minutes

Towers Market
Authors: Rebecca Beggs, Jeanne M. Brett & Laurie Weingart
Source: DRRC

This is a multi-party (4), multi-issue (5), quantified negotiation. The exercise is useful for teaching negotiation concepts in the context of group decision making. There are many Pareto optimal solutions and even more that are suboptimal.

Preparation: 30 minutes
Negotiation: 60 minutes