Mediation Can Be Too Early

Mediation Can Be Too Early in a Dispute, says Geoff Sharp.  "Conventional wisdom says settle your disputes as early as possible" but there's a risk of "pushing people through the doors of the mediation room too soon… before the dispute is mature, before the raw edges have been rubbed off.
The risk is that parties come to the table without adequately defining to themselves, and each other, what the dispute is all about – what it is they agree and disagree upon and without adequate document exchange (and to be honest without adequately spending time in the conflict and all that doing that brings with it)."  Wise words from Geoff Sharp at the Kluwer Mediation Blog.