HR Interview Case: Conflict Resolution

Handle a workplace conflict between two team members as an HR manager.

# Aplly.xyz Case Study Submission

## Title
HR Interview Case: Conflict Resolution

## Type
Business Strategy & Consulting

## Difficulty
Intermediate

## Estimated Time
60 minutes

## Overview
Handle a workplace conflict between two team members as an HR manager.

## Case Details

Function Focus: Business Strategy & Consulting — manual reasoning, decomposition, and critical judgment (no spreadsheet or AI tool permitted in Phase 1)

Scenario:
You are the analyst at a fictional consultancy ("Praxis Advisors") tasked with answering: HR Interview Case: Conflict Resolution. You have a clean, synthetic dataset described below. You must produce a defensible answer using structured reasoning — no tool-assisted shortcut on the first pass.

Dataset Structure:
- case_id
- dept
- conflict_type
- severity
- employees_involved
- duration_days
- escalation_level
- mediation_attempts
- hr_hrs_spent
- productivity_loss_pct
- resolution_status
- satisfaction_score

Tasks:
1. Frame the strategic question and decompose it into the 2-3 forces/components that matter most.
2. Quantify the market/opportunity using back-of-envelope estimates from the dataset; list every assumption.
3. Evaluate 2-3 strategic options against the quantified picture using a decision matrix.
4. State the single most important risk and the assumption whose failure would change the recommendation.
5. Only after the manual pass, stress-test your numbers with a spreadsheet or tool.

Expected Output:
A one-page strategy memo: decomposition, quantified market picture, option scorecard, recommendation + key risk.

Evaluation Criteria:
Decomposition quality, explicit assumptions, quantified reasoning, balanced risk assessment.

## Data Sources

| case_id | dept | conflict_type | severity | employees_involved | duration_days | escalation_level | mediation_attempts | hr_hrs_spent | productivity_loss_pct | resolution_status | satisfaction_score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HR001 | Engineering | Interpersonal | High | 2 | 45 | 3 | 4 | 28 | 35 | Resolved | 6.5 |
| HR002 | Sales | Performance | Medium | 3 | 30 | 2 | 3 | 18 | 22 | Resolved | 7.2 |
| HR003 | Marketing | Team dynamics | High | 4 | 60 | 3 | 5 | 35 | 40 | Ongoing | 4.8 |
| HR004 | Operations | Role ambiguity | Low | 2 | 15 | 1 | 2 | 8 | 12 | Resolved | 8.5 |
| HR005 | Finance | Resource allocation | Medium | 3 | 25 | 2 | 2 | 14 | 18 | Resolved | 7.8 |
| HR006 | Engineering | Technical disagreement | Low | 2 | 10 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 8 | Resolved | 9 |
| HR007 | HR | Policy enforcement | High | 5 | 50 | 4 | 6 | 40 | 30 | Escalated | 3.5 |
| HR008 | Sales | Target setting | Medium | 3 | 20 | 2 | 3 | 12 | 15 | Resolved | 7 |
| HR009 | Product | Strategy conflict | High | 4 | 55 | 3 | 4 | 30 | 38 | Ongoing | 5.2 |
| HR010 | Support | Process compliance | Low | 2 | 12 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 10 | Resolved | 8.2 |


Full dataset: https://github.com/arora200/aplly_case_db/datasets/046-hr-conflict-resolution (synthetic, 10 records)

## Solution Frameworks
Porter 5-forces / market-entry framing, decomposition tree, scenario & sensitivity analysis, prioritization matrix

## Solver Guidance & Tutorials
_Solver guidance added by the pipeline (tutorial links) — see `solver_guidance` field._

## What You'll Learn
- Decompose fuzzy strategy questions
- Quantify markets with assumptions
- Compare options with a decision matrix

## Tags
HR, Interview, Conflict Resolution

## Registration Links
Register as Solver / Register as Evaluator