The Project Management Institute breaks down their body of knowledge into Domains, Tasks, and Enablers. Domain is the high level knowledge area essential to the practice, Task is the underlying responsibilities of the project manager in that domain, and Enablers are illustrative examples of the work associated to the task. 

Manage Conflict is the first task under the PMI’s first Domain, “People”. I love that it is the first task you’re introduced too. Because our projects are typically to serve “People” (the first domain) and when dealing with people you come into conflict all the time (our first task). Minor or major. As Project Manager you generally have no authority, but all responsibility. You have milestones you need to hit, budgets to manage, approvals from ranging functions. The ability to manage conflict can make or break our project. And when we start to consider the experience of team in the project is becomes even more crucial to mange conflict well. 

People Domain

Task 1 -Manage Conflict

• Interpret the source and stage of the conflict
• analyze the context for the conflict
• Evaluate/recommend/reconcile the appropriate conflict resolution solution