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While the five DAC criteria would be useful in project management mainstream practice, they do not meet the full requirements of project management since they blur accountability.

If partners' performance at various levels is not assessed, moral hazard is bound to prevail. Owners should therefore take explicit account of partners' distinct contributions to project outcomes.

How well did the individual development partners perform towards the achievement of project objectives and
what might be done to improve their performance?

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Positive and negative, primary, and secondary long-term effects produced by a development intervention, directly or indirectly, intended or unintended.

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Benefits from a development intervention after major development assistance has been completed.

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A measure of how economically resources/inputs (funds, expertise, time, etc.) has been converted to results.

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Objectives of the intervention were achieved or expected to be achieved taking account of their relative importance.

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The extent to which the objectives of the intervention are consistent with the beneficiaries' requirements, country needs, global priorities and partners' and donors' policies.

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Towards a flexible project assessment methodology

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Towards a flexible project assessment methodology

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Multiple project assessment considerations should be brought to bear and that, beyond narrow economic tests, projects should be appraised from a technical, social, environmental, and organizational standpoint.

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The cost benefit methodology was attuned to the mindsets of academics, government planners and aid managers. It provided a convenient tool for public investment management and aid delivery.

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International development projects have brought national economies closer together, propelled multinational companies towards developing countries, and provided global connections for a bewildering variety of non-governmental organizations.

An even more comprehensive and holistic set of policy priorities has come centre stage. It emphasizes environmental and social objectives; embraces whole of government approaches; and promotes a much greater role for the private funding of social interventions as well as full
involvement of voluntary sector organizations.

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Upscales the intervention as appropriate through gradual and systematic replication of the approach to benefit from economies of scale.

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Helps to solidify commitment and ownership, train staff, confirm the hypotheses identified at the pilot phase, fine tune the project design and set up management information and monitoring systems.

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Explores alternatives and ascertains their risk profiles: it engages in detailed situation analysis, tests local leadership, strengthens domestic capacities, and tries out competing approaches and technologies.

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To country decision makers and potential beneficiaries to take account of their preferences and values when selecting goals and shaping project design.

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Project cycle

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Project designs are not adapted to changing conditions in a timely way.

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Local capacity constraints are not addressed.

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Risks are inadequately assessed or poorly managed.

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Client countries do not “own” the project

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Beneficiaries do not participate sufficiently in decision making.

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Projects perform poorly when

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Projects are conceived as experiments geared to a better understanding of society. Experimental evaluations of project suffer from severe limitations, they are costly, poorly adapted to adaptable interventions, constrained by ethical considerations and highly demanding in terms of specialized skills. Hence, they are now carried out selectively and impact evaluations for projects have come to rely on mixed methods adapted to the circumstances of individual cases.

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To this end, aid managers were tasked to adopt the same quality assurance processes they previously used for individual projects with conditionality moved to the higher plane of policy making. Once again, the project concept had proved adaptable. Projects would henceforth be used as essential building blocks for policy-based country assistance programs.

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Hirschman's own words: “Upon inspection, each project turns
out to represent a unique constellation of experiences and
consequences, of direct and indirect effects. This uniqueness in turn results from the varied interplay between the structural
characteristics of projects, on the one hand, and the social and political environment, on the other”.

"Centrality of side effects” (externalities, spill-overs, linkages, repercussions, etc.). No consistent metric can fully capture let alone aggregate these dimensions: what is most important and significant cannot always be measured.

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The use of development projects as agents of change through dialogue and participation of beneficiaries in project design and implementation parallels contemporary project management research focused on organizational change.

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Projects as versatile development instruments

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Projects as versatile development instruments

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It is at the World Bank that development project work was first codified and where the project was gradually adapted to serve diverse and evolving aid policy directions.

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The history of aid projects demonstrates that projects can serve as instruments of social and environmental policy if conceived as adaptable endeavours, managed to reach beyond narrow goal achievement approaches and reliant on evaluation mechanisms geared to learning and accountability. The resulting focus on social overhead capital, complementarity in investment decisions and external economies implied a prominent role for government in economic planning and investment decisions. Thus, the project concept in international development is rooted in an explicit macro-economic rationale and it constitutes an existential imperative for the aid industry.

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A project implies choosing a pattern into which all our day-to-day decisions, desires and values fit: this is our
fundamental project. From this perspective, projects signal intentionality, singularity, and authenticity: they are inseparable from identity. Projects also connect individuals to society: they help make up the world of others – just as the projects of others help make up our own. For all these reasons, the project concept offers wide opportunities for purposeful social action.

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Projects as privileged particles of development

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Projects as privileged particles of development

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This section highlights the enormous power of the project idea; its remarkable agility to adapt to changing development policy directions; its effectiveness as a development learning instrument; its use as a lever for transformative social change; and its frequent reconfiguration so as to keep serving as the essential building block in the construction of development programs.

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Contemporary project management research is seeking to ‘rethink’ project management theory and broaden its scope.

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The imperative of creativity and innovation has brought forth complex project management systems in high technology industries geared to the development of new products through improvisation, interfunctional collaboration, and concurrent and iterative processes far better adapted to the timely detection and redressal of unavoidable errors than sequential processes implemented in turn by distinct organizational units.

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By now, numerous scholars have established that conventional project management practices are poorly adapted to operating environments characterized by volatility and uncertainty. In such circumstances, precise planning is ineffective due to the unpredictable ways in which unstable systems change. Deviation from the initial project plan and redrawing project boundaries are frequently needed to handle changed circumstances and overcome unexpected challenges in a timely and cost-effective way.

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Towards a New Project Management movement?

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Towards a New Project Management movement?

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Morris (2013) notes that project management practitioners tend to devote more attention to justifying the means rather than the ends of projects. They are encouraged to adopt this stance by project management handbooks that concentrate heavily on implementation towards predetermined goals with little regard to their social relevance or to their adaptation to the operating and social context.

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Gary Richardson (2010) states that “the role of a Project Manager is to make it happen”. Taking the ‘it’ for granted, the traditional project management approach concentrates on the mechanics of project planning, implementing, and controlling while paying lip service to front-end assessments of project goals.

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Edward Deming (1994) argued that total quality management requires systems thinking, teamwork, and leadership rather than top-down, bureaucratic, indicator-driven management.

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Requires many meetings and much paper work.

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Management by Objectives (MBO)

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Favours short-term objectives that are easy to quantify, irrespective of their strategic significance.

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In the 1980's and 1990's, following the advent and increased use of computers, a variety of software programs emerged to help organizations achieve their goals while managing risks.

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Throughout its history, the goal achievement model has dominated project management practices.

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Henry Gantt (1919) designed tools to better design and track large projects by breaking them up into discrete tasks.

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Controlling.

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Coordinating.

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Commanding.

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Organizing.

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Planning.

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Project management as a discipline emerge in the early 20th century when the great French engineer Henri Fayol (1841–1925) outlined five essential functions.

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A flourishing scholarly project management literature combining theoretical insights with empirical studies.

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Models focused on achieving intended results.

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The NPM movement rests on the theoretical pillars of
neoliberal economics, transaction cost analysis, principal-agent
theory and public choice doctrines.

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Current project management practices

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The limits of implementation in project management

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The limits of implementation in project management

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Promotion of corporate management methods in the public
sector.

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Internal competition.

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Decentralization.

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Vouchers.

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Contracting out.

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Deregulation.

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Privatization.

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Budget austerity.

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NPM has inspired the design and use of such
public policies.

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NPM doctrines have facilitated government widespread adoption of business administration principles.

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Emerged in the late 1970s and triumphed in the early 1980s, triggered by economic recession and public opposition to taxes.

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History of the new public management (NPM)

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History of the new public management (NPM)