Teaching Negotiation

Teaching negotiation includes instructional areas such as deal setup and design, dispute resolution systems, arbitration, mediation, and meeting facilitation as well as the use of interactive role-play exercises, books, videos, training materials and role-play simulations designed around a specific negotiation skill or concept. The Program on Negotiation’s educational resource center, known as the Teaching Negotiation Resource Center (TNRC), develops a wide-range of role-play simulations—including the popular Sally Soprano negotiation case study—interactive teaching exercises, books, videos, and scholarly papers devoted to the application of teaching negotiation and training effective negotiators.

Materials in the TNRC cover negotiation-related issues in areas ranging from climate change to ethics. Many of the themes are substantive (e.g., environmental negotiations or business negotiations), some target specific sectors (e.g., health care industry), or address particular contexts (e.g., cross-cultural negotiation skills) while others are more process oriented (e.g., facilitation).

The most popular simulation topics include:

  • Environmental
  • Real Estate
  • Workplace
  • Public Policy
  • Teaching in Law
  • Water Management Simulations

In addition, once a year, the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School selects an outstanding individual who embodies what it means to be a truly great negotiator. To earn the Great Negotiator Award, the honoree must be a distinguished leader whose lifelong accomplishments in the field of dispute resolution and negotiation have had compelling and lasting results.

To help students and professionals learn valuable lessons from these highly skilled negotiators, PON’s Great Negotiator Case Study Series features in-depth studies such as Stuart Eizenstat: Negotiating the Final Accounts of World War II and Lakhdar Brahimi: Negotiating a New Government for Afghanistan.

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High Stakes Negotiations in the Healthcare Industry

Lara SanPietro   •  10/21/2025   •  Filed in Teaching Negotiation

healthcare

Teach Your Students to Negotiate One of the Most Critical Global Industries
With the COVID-19 pandemic devastating communities around the world, the acute importance of the healthcare industry to community welfare has become even more apparent. Healthcare is one of the biggest economies in the world, with billions of dollars spent on treatments and associated research. … Learn More About This Program

Negotiating with Colleagues: Training for Collaborative Human Resources Negotiations

Lara SanPietro   •  10/14/2025   •  Filed in Teaching Negotiation

human resources negotiations

Human resources representatives are often involved in a wide array of internal company negotiations, including one-on-one disputes between colleagues as well as inter-department budgeting and overall staffing plans. To deftly handle this wide array of negotiations, human resources representatives must balance the various stakeholder concerns, financial assessments, and competing interests with fairness, consideration for relationships, … Learn More About This Program

Camp Lemonnier: Negotiating a Lease Agreement for a Key Military Base in Africa

Lara SanPietro   •  10/10/2025   •  Filed in Teaching Negotiation

Camp Lemonnier is a United States Naval Expeditionary Base located in Djibouti and is the only permanent U.S. military base in Africa. Djibouti, bordering Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, has been home to Camp Lemonnier since the September 11, 2001 attacks prompted the United States to seek a temporary … Learn More About This Program

Check Out PON’s Recent Interviews with Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Negotiation and Foreign Policy

Riley Scheuritzel   •  10/09/2025   •  Filed in Teaching Negotiation

In May 2025, the Program on Negotiation (PON) and the Belfer Center at the Harvard Kennedy School welcomed the 70th Secretary of State and Harvard Law School Alum, Michael R. Pompeo to sit down for a series of interviews which included a public session attended by students, faculty, and guests at Harvard Law School, as … Learn More About This Program

The Best New Simulations

Lara SanPietro   •  10/05/2025   •  Filed in Teaching Negotiation

How to Respond to Questions

Looking to update your curriculum with innovative new simulations? Check out these new simulations from the Teaching Negotiation Resource Center (TNRC).
Discord at the Daily Herald – New Simulation
This two-party, three-hour, multi-issue negotiation is between the co-owners of the Daily Herald newspaper over how to resolve ongoing management issues and implement structural reforms in the face … Read The Best New Simulations

Teach Your Students to Negotiate Cross-Border Water Conflicts

Lara SanPietro   •  09/08/2025   •  Filed in Teaching Negotiation

With the south-western United States experiencing a years-long drought which has dramatically depleted the Colorado River, there are many signs that water conflicts will become more frequent. Negotiating cross-border water conflicts requires balancing political interests, power dynamics, scientific research, and legal parameters. Success in water negotiations hinges on prediction and monitoring arrangements as well as … Learn More About This Program

Planning for Cyber Defense of Critical Urban Infrastructure

Lara SanPietro   •  09/02/2025   •  Filed in Teaching Negotiation

negotiation skills

Save Fairport: Planning for Social Cyber Defense of Critical Urban Infrastructure

Cybersecurity for critical urban infrastructure is a major public safety issue for cities. Cyber-attacks can cause major physical damage, as well as sow chaos and undermine public faith in government. Cyber criminals constantly develop new types of malware, which may not be detectable by … Learn More About This Program

Check Out the All-In-One Curriculum Packages – Available for Some of Our Most Popular Simulations

Lara SanPietro   •  08/19/2025   •  Filed in Teaching Negotiation

price

Introducing a new way to go in-depth when teaching the most important negotiation concepts and to measure learning outcomes.
If you are new to teaching negotiation or are looking to go in-depth on teaching key concepts, the All-In-One Curriculum Package will provide you with everything you need. The Teaching Negotiation Resource Center has created All-In-One Curriculum … Learn More About This Program

Negotiating Identity and Values-Based Disputes

Lara SanPietro   •  07/14/2025   •  Filed in Teaching Negotiation

conflict resolution

How Do Parties in Conflict Negotiate Core Beliefs?
Identity and values-based disputes are particularly challenging to resolve, as identities are naturally inflexible and values are typically much less elastic than interest-based issues. In conventional interest-based negotiation, parties often do give up one thing in exchange for getting something they want more. This is often not possible … Read Negotiating Identity and Values-Based Disputes

New Simulation: International Business Acquisition Negotiated Online

Lara SanPietro   •  07/08/2025   •  Filed in Teaching Negotiation

Ren the Robot

New from the Teaching Negotiation Resource Center (TNRC), Ren the Robot is a one-and-a-half hour, two-party, multi-issue negotiation between a Tokyo-based robotics company, Grubotics, and a U.S.-based tech company, Delivered, over a potential acquisition deal. It is designed to be conducted using online video conferencing. The use of online video conference technology highlights the conveniences … Learn More About This Program

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