How many times in the course of a day do you find yourself negotiating a situation? I would be willing to guess that you encounter both planned and unplanned opportunities for negotiation several times a day, yet more often than not, you may find the act of negotiation difficult. If you push too hard, the deal goes astray. If you're too soft, you become known as a pushover. The key to sound negotiation is ensuring the appropriate approach to the kind of negotiation to hand. Within the IT environment, there are many kinds of negotiations that take place on an ongoing basis; we are continually involved in negotiations with users, partners, executive management, staff and, of course, suppliers. As a matter of fact, the environment within which we negotiate has become so specialised that a generic approach to all different kinds of negotiations no longer delivers optimal results.