negotiation-alignment-governance

# Negotiation Alignment Governance

## Table of Contents
- [Purpose](#purpose)
- [When to Use](#when-to-use)
- [What Is It](#what-is-it)
- [Workflow](#workflow)
- [Common Patterns](#common-patterns)
- [Guardrails](#guardrails)
- [Quick Reference](#quick-reference)

## Purpose

Create explicit stakeholder alignment through negotiated working agreements, clear decision rights, and conflict resolution protocols—transforming ambiguity and tension into shared understanding and actionable governance.

## When to Use

**Decision Authority Ambiguity:**
- Multiple stakeholders believe they have final say
- Unclear who should be consulted vs informed
- Decisions blocked because no one owns them
- Frequent "I thought you were doing that" moments

**Cross-Functional Conflict:**
- Departments optimizing for different goals
- Resource contention between teams
- Trade-off disputes (quality vs speed, innovation vs stability)
- Scope disagreements between stakeholders

**Alignment Needs:**
- New team forming and needs working agreements
- Org restructure creating unclear boundaries
- Cross-functional initiative requiring coordination
- Partnership or joint venture needing governance

**Negotiation Scenarios:**
- Competing priorities requiring resolution
- Stakeholder expectations needing alignment
- SLAs and commitments to negotiate
- Risk tolerance differences to reconcile

## What Is It

Negotiation-alignment-governance creates explicit agreements on:

**1. Decision Rights (Who Decides):**
- RACI: Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed
- DACI: Driver, Approver, Contributors, Informed
- RAPID: Recommend, Agree, Perform, Input, Decide
- Consent-based frameworks

**2. Working Agreements (How We Work):**
- Communication norms (sync vs async, response times)
- Meeting protocols (agendas, decision methods)
- Quality standards and definition of done
- Escalation paths and conflict resolution

**3. Conflict Resolution (When We Disagree):**
- Structured dialogue formats
- Mediation