I’m doing a project for a Commonwealth department. As part of this project I was asked to facilitate negotiations between two government departments. They set up four 2 hour weekly meetings for the negotiation process. I was less than thrilled by this prospect as this meant I would have to go to Canberra on a weekly basis which, as previously mentioned on my blog, is a very underwhelming city. Further if you go to Canberra at this time of year for a morning meeting you need to travel down the night before as they regularly have lots of fog in the mornings and planes cannot land, and I’m not a fan of staying on hotels for work purposes and eating in restaurants on my own. I am sure that the incentive of not going to Canberra every week might have enabled my bringing the two parties to agreement after just 45 minutes into the first meeting, meaning all subsequent meetings could be cancelled - hurrah! - that and my amazing negotiation and facilitation skills of course!