Using Business Tools in Mediation

I had the great pleasure of being invited to speak at the annual International Mediation Interest Group meeting held at the World Intellectual Property Organisation’s offices in Geneva this week. This is a great opportunity to debate the latest thinking and techniques with leading academics and practitoners from Europe and the US although it would have been nice if there had been more input from non Western societies. I picked up a number of new ideas especially in the area of preparing as a lawyer to represent a client at mediation. My own paper looked at how business tools could be used in a mediation. SWOT analysis, Venn Diagrams, Decision Trees and the like can be used with great effect in different parts of the mediation whether it is in clarifiying the picture, identifying the areas to be tackled, reality testing, or just trying to look at the situation from a different angle. They also have the great advantage of being familiar tools to most business men so by using them you create confidence in what may be an unfamiliar process.

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