JPMA-02212; No of Pages 12

Available online at www.sciencedirect.com ScienceDirect

International Journal of Project Management xx (2019) xxx www.elsevier.com/locate/ijproman

Towards a ‘New Project Management’ movement?

An international development perspective
Robert Picciotto 1
University of Auckland, New Zealand
Received 27 October 2018; received in revised form 14 May 2019; accepted 11 August 2019
Available online xxxx

Abstract

This article offers an international development perspective on project management. A brief history of the ambitious and controversial role
that projects have played over seven decades of development assistance in diverse operational contexts evokes many of the themes vividly
articulated by the flourishing contemporary project management literature. They highlight the limitations of conventional project management
practices dominated by Management by Objectives principles. Development experience also stresses the promise of adaptable approaches to
project design and management in complex and turbulent operating environments and it suggests that projects conceived as experiments can
contribute to sound decision making at the higher plane of strategy formulation and policy-making. Beyond con firming the soundness and
utility of contemporary project management scholarship, the article puts forward six recommendations grounded in development experience
that may be worth consideration by the nascent ‘New Project Management’ movement. © 2019 Elsevier Ltd, APM and IPMA. All rights
reserved.

Keywords: Evaluation; New public management; International development; Project cycle; Results chain

“Modesty with respect to generalized evaluation and
quantification is in reality the necessary counterpart of
the large and free-swinging ambitions projects must
entertain and cultivate in countries where they are called
upon to make a contribution to progress that goes far
beyond their immediate production tasks2”.
Albert O. Hirschman.
1. Introduction
Triggered by economic recession and public opposition
to taxes, the ‘new public management’ (NPM) emerged in
the late 1970s and triumphed in the early 1980's. Since
then, promoted by private consulting firms, NPM doctrines
have facilitated
E-mail address: r.picciotto@jeunot.net.
1
Robert Picciotto headed Projects Departments in three of the
World Bank Regions before being promoted to Vice President,
Corporate Planning and Budgeting and subsequently to Director
General, Independent Evaluation
Group (1992–2002)
2
Hirschman, 1995, p. 188
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2019.08.002
0263-7863/00 © 2019 Elsevier Ltd, APM and IPMA. All rights reserved.
government widespread adoption of business administration
principles (Ika and Lytvynov, 2011; Osborne and Gaebler,
1992). Early and diverse applications in the United Kingdom,
New Zealand, Australia and the United States have been
replicated throughout the world. Specifically, as noted by
Gruening (2001), NPM has inspired the design and use of
such public policies as budget austerity, privatization,
deregulation, contracting out, vouchers, decentralization,
internal competition, promotion of corporate management
methods in the public sector, etc.
The NPM movement rests on the theoretical pillars of
neoliberal economics, transaction cost analysis, principal-
agent theory and public choice doctrines. Current project
management models focused on achieving intended results are
animated by the same ideas. But systemic deficiencies in the
use of such models have been noted (Young et al., 2012) and
in the international development arena, where ‘new wealth’
entrepreneurs have become major players (Moran and Stone,
2016), the heavy bureaucracy and high transaction costs of the
audit and inspection industry have elicited a spirited reaction
(Ika and Lytvynov, 2011; Natsios, 2010).
In parallel, a flourishing scholarly project management
literature combining theoretical insights with empirical studies
is challenging current project management practices

Please cite this article as: R. Picciotto, Towards a ‘New Project Management’ movement? An international development perspective, International Journal of
Project
Management, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2019.08.002
2 R. Picciotto / International Journal of Project Management xx (2019) xxx
(Bergmann and Karwowski, 2018). Yet, as noted by Ika and
Hodgson (2014), the scholarly conversation between the field
of international development and project management have
been limited, despite their deep and shared interest for change.
While it may be too early to hail a ‘New Project
Management’ movement that overturns conventional project
management precepts, there is little doubt that the intellectual
infrastructure for such an initiative is being constructed by
project management academics (Lundin and Soderholm, 1995;
Morris, 2013; Sydow and Braun, 2017; etc.).
This is providential: such a paradigm would help liberate
new energies and make projects more relevant and effective in
complex and uncertain operating environments (Shenhar and
Dvir, 2007). In line with these aspirations, this article explores
the intersection of project management and international
development to benefit from yet untapped opportunities of
cross-fertilization (Ika and Hodgson, 2014; Ika, 2018). It
confirms the emerging findings of a nascent New Project
Management movement and suggests additions to its agenda
through an examination of the successes and travails of the
project enterprise in the international development field.
The article is in five parts. First, it sketches in broad
strokes, the origins of traditional project management
practices and points to the recent upsurge of academic
publications that question the status quo (Morris, 2011, 2013).
Second, it unfolds the history of projects in development and
shows that projects conceived as experiments (Rondinelli,
1993) have helped to incubate and upscale innovative
development policies. Third, it outlines the central role that
evaluation has played in promoting accountability and
learning, as a counterweight to the resultsbased management
approach (Ika, 2012; Ika and Lytvynov, 2011) and the
oppressive excesses of the compliance industry (Picciotto,
2013, 2015). Fourth, it describes the analytical tools that have
been forged to monitor and assess project performance in
turbulent and risky operating environments (Ika, 2015, 2018;
Ika et al., 2010, 2012). Fifth, it offers six recommendations for
consideration by the ‘New Project Management’ pioneers,
based on the hard-won lessons of development experience.
2. The limits of implementation in project management
Project management has an ancient history. Such
architectural marvels as the Pyramids of Giza, the Great Wall
of China or the Coliseum in Rome would not have been
created without effective project management (Seymour and
Hussein, 2014). On the other hand, project management as a
discipline did not emerge until the early 20th century when the
great French engineer Henri Fayol (1841–1925) outlined five
essential functions, still considered relevant by project
management practitioners: planning, organizing, commanding,
coordinating and controlling (Fells, 2000). Next, Henry Gantt
(1919) designed tools to better design and track large projects
by breaking them up into discrete tasks.
The project is a social construct (Morris, 2011, 2013).
Throughout its history, the goal achievement model has
dominated project management practices (Seymour and
Please cite this article as: R. Picciotto, Towards a ‘New Project Management’ movement? An international development perspective, International Journal of
Project
Management, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2019.08.002
Hussein, 2014). In the 1960's and 1970's, experience with
large projects gave rise to methods designed to take account
of task interdependencies and to focus managerial attention
on the most critical tasks (Project Evaluation Review
Techniques, Critical Path Method, etc.). 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.
Since then, professionalization has been promoted by the
International Project Management Association and the
Project Management Institute, with decidedly mixed results
(Hällgren et al., 2012). More research is needed to
determine why projects may fail or succeed despite poor
management and conversely why effective project
management performance does not invariably lead to good
performance (Ika, 2015, 2018; Shenhar and Dvir).
2.1. The lure of goal achievement
Management by Objectives (MBO) favours short-term
objectives that are easy to quantify, irrespective of their
strategic significance. Reflecting a hierarchical management
style, MBO requires many meetings and much paper work.
First proposed by Peter Drucker (1954), the MBO model
lost its lustre following its travails in the competitive
business world. The coup de grace was delivered by
Edward Deming (1994) who argued that total quality
management requires systems thinking, teamwork, and
leadership rather than top-down, bureaucratic, indicator-
driven management. A convincing synthesis between the
two approaches has yet to emerge.1
Currently dominant project management practices are
aligned with the MBO approach and they faithfully reflect
the control orientation of New Public Management
principles. Thus, Gary Richardson (2010) states that “the
role of a Project Manager is to make it happen” (p.4).
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.
In the same vein, 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. Animated by systematic and rational methods, they
advocate time-tested tools focused on planning and control.
This appeals to action-oriented managers whose remit is to
get things done and who do not question authority. They are
1 This is not to deny that the two approaches have things in
common: driving out fear, promoting innovation, judicious use of
rewards, etc. (https://www.
processexcellencenetwork.com/business-process-management-
bpm/columns/ peter-f-drucker-and-w-edwards-deming-
intersections)
 R. Picciotto / International Journal of Project Management xx (2019) xxx
dedicated to clear and precise goals. They take great
satisfaction in the efficient and smooth delivery of intended
results on time and on budget (Andersen, 2014).
Thus, the Association for Project Management defines
project management as “the application of processes,
methods, knowledge, skills and experience to achieve the
project objectives2”. Similarly, a sharp results orientation
characterizes the Fifth Edition of the Project Management
Body of Knowledge (Project Management Institute, 2013)
which defines projects as temporary endeavours undertaken
to achieve a result (p. 3) and project management as the
application of knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to
meet project requirements (p.5) “in alignment with the
organization's goals and managed in accordance with the
organization's established practices” (p.19).
2.2. Towards a New Project Management movement?
A burgeoning scholarly literature is currently
challenging the linear concepts embedded in traditional
project management approaches. 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
(Kopczyński and Brzozowski, 2015). 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.
In response, some scholars have injected systems theory
and complexity thinking in the project management field
(Kapsali, 2011; Shenhar and Dvir, 2007). In parallel, 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 (Lindkvist et al., 1998). Still other
scholars have questioned project design and management
practices which ignore the antecedents, and the social and
institutional context of projects, i.e. treat projects as
‘islands’ with closed boundaries best managed ‘by the book’
(Engwall, 2003).
In sum, contemporary project management research is
seeking to ‘rethink’ project management theory and broaden
its scope (Svejvig and Andersen, 2015). Diverse project
studies have been proposed to address more rigorously
causal relationships in the positivist tradition, mobilize the
insights of complexity and network theory, and engage in
emancipatory research that gives voice to disadvantaged
2
https://www.apm.org.uk/body-of-knowledge/context/governance/projectm
anagement/
Please cite this article as: R. Picciotto, Towards a ‘New Project Management’ movement? An international development perspective, International Journal of
Project
Management, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2019.08.002
3
groups. (Geraldi and Soderlund, 2018). Research on values-
based, ethical project management is underway:
responsiveness to diverse stakeholders' views in the public
interest is being advocated as an essential feature of
principled management leadership (Moylan and Walker,
2012).
Finally, as illustrated by other articles in this special issue,
reaching out to the international development enterprise is
contributing to the quiet but unmistakable revolution currently
underway in the project management arena. Some project
management thinkers are reaching out to international
development projects experience in voluntary organizations
(Golini et al., 2015) while others are probing how the
dynamics of project implementation can be improved (Ika et
al., 2012).
In the same vein, this article advocates more systematic use
of the accumulated lessons of the international development
enterprise to help project management practitioners escape the
implementation “black box” within which they are all too
often consigned (Ika, 2015, 2018). Broadening the scope of
project management models to embrace ideas drawn from
development experience makes eminent sense since
international development is emblematic of the ubiquity of the
project idea throughout the world (Ika and Hodgson, 2014).
3. Projects as privileged particles of development
The global success of the project approach in development
is undeniable. Thousands of aid practitioners are currently
engaged in project design, appraisal, and management
activities worldwide. Armed with specialized evaluation tools,
they are backed up by a proliferating network of consultancies
and centres of expertise. What lies behind this extraordinary
global success? 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.
3.1. The project idea
As a noun, the word project implies novelty of intent,
clarity of purpose, ad-hoc (often temporary) organizational
arrangements, readiness to incur risks and concentration of
skills and efforts. It also promises an imaginative vision, a
calculated method, an explicit sequence, and a concern for
consistency. It is about getting things done rationally and
through concerted action. The term evokes spontaneity,
anticipation, and incompleteness which also characterise the
international development adventure.
As a verb, the term conveys determination: “to project”
signals ambition, creativity, and deliberation. It also means
being exposed, striking a pose, making oneself heard, and
revealingly, it can also signify imputing one's desires (or
imposing one's perceptions of reality) on others – a missionary
aspiration which for better or for worse is prevalent in the aid
4 R. Picciotto / International Journal of Project Management xx (2019) xxx
industry (Ika and Hodgson, 2014). Equally, to project implies
precision of intent: literally, “to project” is to aim at a target
(i.e. projectiles). Finally, in philosophy, the verb merges with
the noun and for existentialists, projects reveal ‘who we are’ in
a world where life takes on meaning through projects
conceived in freedom.
Thus, a project implies choosing a pattern into which all
our day-to-day decisions, desires and values fit: this is our
fundamental project (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,
2011). 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.
3.2. The origins of development projects
Projects have long been the workhorses of development
cooperation. The international aid industry emerged out of the
ashes of World War II to improve the well-being and enhance
the capabilities and freedoms of the world's poorest and most
vulnerable people (Sen, 1999). Following seven decades of
development experience, it is high time for project managers
and analysts everywhere to benefit from the travails and
discoveries of projects carried out in the zones of dynamism
and turmoil of the developing world (Ika and Hodgson, 2014).
International development projects were conceived as
ambitious ventures from the very start. They achieved
prominence at a time of unbridled optimism and confidence in
government (Arndt, 1987). Indeed, 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.
Throughout the pioneering years of the 1950's, most
development economists held the view that reliance on the
free market was not enough to generate economic
development. Influenced by the experience of wartime
planning, public sector projects were adopted as primary tools
of economic transformation in the newly independent
countries. Thus, international development projects were
originally conceived as the indispensable components of five-
year development plans geared to nation building and
improved livelihoods (Dasgupta, 1987). It was widely
expected that increased public investment, made possible by
development aid, would help poor countries escape the
poverty trap.
This mental construct featured a dominant government role
in the economy and deliberately simulated the “production
function” metaphor of development. Through projects, a
blueprint approach to development facilitated the retailing of
public expenditures programs for external assistance.
Conceived as slices of the public investment program, projects
were selected to serve national goals. As platforms for
international cooperation, they offered a convenient vehicle
Please cite this article as: R. Picciotto, Towards a ‘New Project Management’ movement? An international development perspective, International Journal of
Project
Management, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2019.08.002
for the resource transfers needed to fill national savings gaps
(Lewis, 1984).
The notion that a large collection of investment projects
was the key to development cooperation and growth was
eloquently articulated by Paul Rosenstein-Rodan (1984).
His “big push” theory of development asserted that a critical
mass of public investment would use the external
economies associated with rapid growth to help induce a
shift of underemployed rural labour towards the more
productive industrial sector. This implied a large portfolio
of projects featuring major investments in industry,
infrastructure and urbanization explicitly selected to
facilitate inter-firm exchanges, achieve complementarity
among firms and tap economies of scale.
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. However, as
conceptions of economic development changed, so did
development project designs.
3.3. Projects as versatile development instruments
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.
It was inspired by the successful implementation of large
infrastructure projects in developed countries (e.g. the
Hoover Dam). But the peculiarities of project
implementation in poor countries led to gradual changes in
concepts and approaches. For example, 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 (Van Marrewijk,
2018).
Albert O. Hirschman, who ranks among the most
innovative and perceptive social scientists of the past
century, embarked on a worldwide tour of World Bank
financed projects in 1964 (Hirschman, 1995). Drawing on
field observations of eleven projects selected to illustrate
development experience in various sectors and geographical
areas, he discovered that, beyond their direct effects on the
production of goods and services, most projects have
farreaching and unintended consequences, both positive and
negative (Ika and Soderlund, 2016).
These effects are so varied and elusive that they can
hardly be detected let alone ranked through a single
criterion. In 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” (op.cit., p.186).
 R. Picciotto / International Journal of Project Management xx (2019) xxx
A recurrent theme of Hirschman's classic is that projects
are “privileged particles of development”. They are
privileged because development cooperation is about social
learning as well as accountability. The unforeseen
difficulties and risks facing project implementation are
concealed by a providential Hiding Hand. They bring forth
hidden ingenuities and resources and provide opportunities
to learn from error (Hirschman, 1995; Ika, 2018; Ika and
Soderlund, 2016). In turn, this means that project objectives
are not always explicit (Golini et al., 2015; Ika and
Hodgson, 2014). Indeed, the tacit intent of international
development projects cannot be equated with their efficacy
in meeting pre-ordained, measurable objectives.
Accordingly, Hirschman (1995) emphasized the
“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. Only
a generous conception of projects can explain why
individual development interventions have been variously
used as: (i) policy change instruments; (ii) upscaling
mechanisms for pioneering local initiatives; and (iii)
transmission belts for new ideas and technologies. A few
examples illustrate this proposition.
First, the requirement that all major infrastructure
projects funded by the World Bank should be subject to
international bidding procedures and to compliance with
safeguard policies (World Bank, 2017; Ika, 2015) has had a
powerful signalling effect that extends far beyond the
projects themselves.3 It has promoted transparency in
government contracting and helped protect vulnerable
social groups and the environment. Second, multiplier
effects throughout the countryside have characterized “trait
making” projects (Hirschman, 1995; Ika and Soderlund,
2016) such as livestock development projects used to
disseminate intensive production patterns and new pasture
varieties, e.g. in Brazil (World Bank, 1967) or agricultural
extension projects, geared to improved small farmers'
practices through easier access to state-of-the-art research
(World Bank, 1991).
Conversely, “trait taking” projects (Hirschman, 1995; Ika
and Soderlund, 2016) make a difference by disseminating
successful development experiments, e.g. the expansion of
a dairy marketing cooperative system pioneered within the
State of Gujarat triggered a nationwide dairy revolution in
India (World Bank, 1998). Thus, international development
projects have come in different shapes in diverse operating
environments but, in all their embodiments, they have
reflected a rationalist, pragmatic ‘can do’ spirit (Ika and
Hodgson, 2014). They have promoted innovation; attracted
new partners; helped crowd in private investment;
incubated and replicated new development approaches; etc.
They have been combined and sequenced to tap synergies;
3 The Equator Principles, used by the private financial industry to
determine, assess, and manage environmental and social project risks,
are inspired by the World Bank Group Environmental and Social
Framework
(http://www.equatorprinciples.com/resources/equator_principles_III.pd
f)
Please cite this article as: R. Picciotto, Towards a ‘New Project Management’ movement? An international development perspective, International Journal of
Project
Management, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2019.08.002
5
build institutions and give credibility and impetus to new
policy directions. This is a far cry from the inward looking,
results-obsessed, metrics-driven, value free approach that
characterizes conventional project management practice.
3.4. Aid projects move to a higher plane
The need for broadening the scope of project work to serve
vast ambitions became self-evident following the neoclassical
resurgence in development economics that justified putting
projects to work to drive country-wide policy reform. For
better or for worse, the micro-economics of investment
appraisal gave way to the macro-economics of the Washington
consensus.4This doctrinal shift was consistent with the
controversial role that the World Bank and other development
finance institutions played throughout the eighties and nineties
in promoting open trade and neoliberal economic policies. But
there is little doubt that Sector Wide Approaches and
Structural Adjustment Programs proved effective in inducing
governments to reorient their policy directions.
In the wake of this market-led policy push, the
globalization process accelerated. Henceforth, the
development community would expect all developing country
economies to be closely connected to the mighty engine of the
global market. Rather than correcting for market imperfections
through shadow pricing in the economic analysis of individual
projects, policy makers opted to use projects as levers used to
reform the policies and institutions that created these
distortions in the first place. Throughout the ‘structural
adjustment’ era, the project label would be applied to country-
wide and sector-wide adjustment operations.
In parallel, policy driven project portfolio management at
country level would become a major focus of due diligence.
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. In the multi-faceted operating environment that
resulted from the growing preoccupation with country policy
and governance, the economic analysis of projects was
complemented by conditionality reviews backed by multi-
disciplinary performance assessments at country level.
These would remain in place even after market
fundamentalism executed a tactical retreat in the 1990's. This
is when, under pressure from a new development coalition led
by faithbased organizations and developing country
governments, carefully orchestrated public opinion campaigns
that focused on debt reduction presaged new development
policy directions. Greater priority to social programs resulted
under the aegis of poverty reduction strategies. Economic
4 The Washington Consensus is a set of ten economic policy prescriptions
reportedly used as a “standard” policy reform menu by Washington, D.C.–
based institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World
Bank, and the US Treasury Department.
6 R. Picciotto / International Journal of Project Management xx (2019) xxx
conditionality gave way to social conditionality – which once
again gave rise to the spirited opposition of aid critics.
Externally imposed conditions forced on reluctant
governments, having proved counterproductive, they were
deemphasized, and replaced by policy dialogue. Ex-ante
policy
sticks gave way to ex-post policy carrots. Country based
programmes gradually emerged as the ‘unit of account’ in
development cooperation with preference given to projects
deliberately selected to connect developing countries to the
global economic system.
3.5. Projects as experiments
Policy based projects as well as traditional investment
projects are designed to meet specific social goals through
explicit means. Whether these goals and means are
appropriate and consistent is one of the basic questions that
evaluation seeks to address. At their best, projects are
conceived as experiments geared to a better understanding of
society. But this implies that observed outcomes are indeed
due to the project. Establishing causality is a major challenge.
Both quantitative and qualitative methods have been put to
work to illuminate project impacts. Experimental and
quasiexperimental methods account for exogenous influences,
to recognize confounding factors and to consider explicit and
valid counterfactual scenarios.
Carried out on mature and representative operations,
experimental evaluations of project impacts have become an
integral part of the project evaluation tool kit. But they 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 (Stern et al., 2012)
Evidently, nimble, agile approaches to policy experiments
contrast with the exclusive commitment to the randomized
control techniques currently fashionable among
econometricians (Picciotto, 2012).
3.6. Adaptable processes
Contrasting with conventional project management
approaches, the traditional development project cycle as
mandated in World Bank guidelines (Baum, 1982; Biggs and
Smith, 2003; Ika et al., 2010; Ika and Hodgson, 2014) gives
proper weight to the front end as well as the back end of
project work. It specifies the due diligence activities required
to achieve good project outcomes: identification, preparation,
appraisal, supervision… and evaluation.
It is the back end of this process (ex-post evaluation) that
demonstrated conclusively that projects perform poorly when
(i) beneficiaries do not participate sufficiently in decision
making; (ii) client countries do not “own” the project; (iii)
Please cite this article as: R. Picciotto, Towards a ‘New Project Management’ movement? An international development perspective, International Journal of
Project
Management, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2019.08.002
risks are inadequately assessed or poorly managed; (iv) local
capacity constraints are not addressed; and (v) project designs
are not adapted to changing conditions in a timely way. A
distinct perspective on the project cycle emerged to take
account of these findings. It emphasized country ownership,
nurturing of commitment by all project participants,
adaptability of project designs and explicit management of
risks.
The first phase of the new project cycle (Picciotto and
Weaving, 1994) involves listening to country decision
makers and potential beneficiaries to take account of their
preferences and values when selecting goals and shaping
project design. The second phase (piloting) of the new
project cycle 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. The third phase
(demonstration) 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. The
fourth phase (mainstreaming) upscales the intervention as
appropriate through gradual and systematic replication of
the approach to benefit from economies of scale.
The ideas embedded in the new project cycle evoke the
“experimenting society” and the piecemeal social
engineering approach visualized by Donald T. Campbell at
the origins of the evaluation discipline.5 They have also
inspired the advent of learning and innovation loans (LILs)
and adaptable program loans (APLs) in to fund innovative
interventions (World Bank, 2001). More recently, the
World Bank has added a Multiphase Programmatic
Approach (MPA) to its tool kit. It allows countries to
structure a long, large, or complex engagement as a set of
smaller linked operations (or phases), under one program.
Such innovative approaches to project design and
management are consistent with the pioneering ideas of
‘New Project Management’ thinkers (Shenhar and Dvir,
2007).
3.7. The road ahead
Along with open trade, migration and foreign direct
investment, 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. By the turn of the century,
poverty reduction had become the core objective of the
development enterprise. All United Nations members
adopted Millennium Development Goals designed in the
first instance to reduce global poverty by half by the year
2015.6
5 An experimenting society is one in which policy-relevant
knowledge is created, critically assessed, and communicated with
the aim of discovering more effective forms of public action and
improve the problem- solving capacities of society. (Dunn, 1997)
6 http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/
 R. Picciotto / International Journal of Project Management xx (2019) xxx
Suddenly a more comprehensive, multi-disciplinary
conception of development had to be accommodated and
projects followed suit. Under the poverty reduction compact
of the Monterrey consensus7 the problems of others had
become our own. Market based approaches were not
abandoned and economic growth remained an important
metric of economic progress but a more balanced approach
to policy reform, respectful of aid recipients' prerogatives
and more sensitive to the social costs of adjustment, became
the norm.
According to the United Nations (2015), extreme
poverty has declined dramatically. In 1990, nearly half of
the population in the developing world lived on less than
$1.25 a day; that proportion dropped to 14% in 2015 but by
then the existential threat of climate change, the rapid
increase in income inequality within most countries and the
recognition that pressing and interconnected economic,
social, and environmental problems require global solutions
had laid the groundwork for the adoption of the universal
Sustainable Development Goals in 2015.10
In turn, 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.
Development projects will henceforth be selected and
designed to conform to the new agenda. They are likely to
remain the privileged instruments of the development
enterprise and their design will continue to be shaped by
evaluation using methods aligned with ever-changing
development paradigms. No longer conceived as isolated
initiatives, projects are increasingly used as indispensable
instruments of thematic reform programs or as agile change
agents within project portfolios geared to the management
of complex adaptive systems (Sweetman and Conboy,
2018).
4. Project evaluation has evolved
At the origins of the development enterprise, drawing on
the approach previously used by the US Corps of Engineers
to flood control initiatives, cost-benefit analysis was
elaborated, systematized and pressed into service for
development project selection, appraisal, and ex-post
assessment (Congressional Research Service, 2009). This
was intended to ensure that net contributions to the gross
national product are maximized.
For many years, cost-benefit analysis dominated
development project evaluation and served as an emblem of
rationality and professionalism in the development
assistance industry (Brent, 2000; Ika and Hodgson, 2014;
Ika et al., 2010). The method distilled the knowledge,
insights, and tenets of economics to assess development
projects and guide resource allocation in investment
programming. It was congruent with the construction of
7 http://www.un.org/esa/ffd/monterrey/MonterreyConsensus.pdf
Please cite this article as: R. Picciotto, Towards a ‘New Project Management’ movement? An international development perspective, International Journal of
Project
Management, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2019.08.002
7
gross national production estimates: the flow of net project
benefits measured the value added to the economy by
project investments. An impressive array of operational
guidelines, training manuals and process innovations
emerged within international organizations and government
agencies (Asian Development Bank, 2013).
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. It did not take
long for a “host of people serving in budget bureaus,
planning authorities, and all types of ministries and
agencies (among them the World Bank itself) all over the
globe … to see to it that projects not meeting adequate
standards are rejected while those in the social interest are
accepted” (Harberger, 1987).
The new intellectual construct bridged public expenditures
stewardship at the macro level with micro level decision
making. Heroic efforts were deployed to disseminate the
technique, train staff, generate data and estimate shadow
prices designed to account for market imperfections. To be
sure, critics pointed to the prohibitive transaction costs of the
approach, the misleading accuracy of point estimates, the
pervasive data limitations regarding side effects, the
multiplicity of risks faced in project implementation and the
lack of comparability of estimates across sectors (Turner,
1979). Critics also noted that counterfactuals (essential for
assessing the value added by projects) were hard to come by
or justify (Hansson, 2007). Furthermore, the method can
easily be manipulated to justify power holders' decisions. Such
objections provided ample fodder for academic speculation,
and they prevailed when state led approaches to development
lost their lustre.
4.1. The decline of cost-benefit analysis
By the 1970's economic planning was under siege. In the
wake of the debt crisis of the mid-1980's, neoliberalism
triumphed, and a market fundamentalist wave washed over the
aid industry. Since the mid-80's, cost benefit analysis has been
viewed as just one project assessment tool. It is well adapted
to the assessment of physical investments and it is solidly
grounded in public finance theory and welfare economics.
Hence, cost benefit analysis is still recognized as an integral
part of the evaluation tool kit (Florio, 2007), as is its close
cousin – social rate of return analysis that tackles some of its
shortcomings (Canning and Bennathan, 1999; Ika et al., 2010).
But given its manifold limitations and the difficulty of
identifying meaningful counterfactuals, it no longer reigns
supreme in the firmament of development project evaluation.
To be sure cost-benefit analysis is still practiced but it is
used without fanfare and on a modest scale – for about a third
of project interventions. It has had its run as the standard
development effectiveness tool. In part, this is because the
quest for a ranking device to govern project selection in
national planning – one of the major selling points of
costbenefit analysis – is now thoroughly discredited. Accurate
8 R. Picciotto / International Journal of Project Management xx (2019) xxx
quantitative measurement, let alone aggregation of the costs
and benefits of side effects, is simply not feasible. Rather, the
art of project management consists in gauging the interplay
between project characteristics and the political and social and
project context and drawing their implications for project
design (Hirschman, 1995; Ika and Soderlund, 2016; Ika, 2018;
Picciotto, 2015).
This means that multiple project assessment considerations
should be brought to bear and that, beyond narrow economic
tests, projects should be appraised from a technical, social,
positive side effects, projects can generate negative side effects 10
http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/
environmental, and organizational standpoint. Along with
their achieve their goals at great cost to vulnerable groups and
the environment, e.g.: add to climate change risks, contribute
to growing inequality, increase inter-regional or ethnic
tensions, facilitate corruption, etc.
Indeed, over the years, the development scene has featured
a significant number of horror stories (Chiras, 2016). The
negative social and environmental externalities of a large and
misguided infrastructure projects have played into the hands
of aid pessimists and their control freak allies and it has
strengthened the case for increasingly tough quality control
assurances for development project selection, appraisal and
supervision. Just as in medicine, living up to the Hippocratic
Oath of “first, do no harm” has become critical to the political
and social legitimacy of investment projects. Corporate social
responsibility concerns in the private sector evoke the same
preoccupations.
4.2. Towards a flexible project assessment methodology
Just as the results chain and the project cycle were re-
shaped to meet the requirements of changing development
perspectives, the cost-benefit instrument was superseded by a
wide range of project evaluation techniques, the judicious
admixture of which can help generate valid project
assessments.8 A broad conception of project evaluation value
also permeates the systems approach that has long been
prevalent in the project management literature (Anbari, 1985).
Development project evaluation criteria geared to practical
realities and supportive of mixed methods emerged in 1992
under the aegis of the Evaluation Network Development
Assistance Committee of the OECD (DAC). 9 It stated that a
development intervention can be labelled effective only if it
achieves its relevant objectives efficiently, in a sustainable
fashion and with positive impacts. This common-sense
approach suddenly became indispensable in an operating
context of uncertainty and volatility.
The generic, flexible, qualitative development DAC criteria
invited a wide range of social sciences to the ball. They made
8 This is also when the balanced score card that aims to capture the
nonfinancial aspects of business performance emerged
(http://www.cimaglobal.
com/Documents/ImportedDocuments/Tech_rept_Effective_Performance_Mg
t_ with_Balanced_Scd_July_2005.pdf)
9 http://www.oecd.org/dac/evaluation/daccriteriaforevaluatingdevelop
ment assistance.htm
Please cite this article as: R. Picciotto, Towards a ‘New Project Management’ movement? An international development perspective, International Journal of
Project
Management, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2019.08.002
possible systematic assessment of a growing diversity of
project instruments and methods and they proved resilient to
periodic changes in development paradigms (Picciotto, 2013).
The most straightforward DAC project performance test (the
outcome rating) is grounded in the trilogy of relevance,
efficacy, and efficiency. It defines these three criteria as
follows (Ika, 2015, 2018; Ika et al., 2010):
• Relevance: the extent to which the objectives of the
intervention are consistent with the beneficiaries'
that are hard to capture in cost benefit analysis. They may
requirements, country needs, global priorities and
partners' and donors' policies
• Efficacy: the extent to which the objectives of the
intervention were achieved or expected to be achieved
taking account of their relative importance10
• Efficiency: a measure of how economically
resources/inputs
(funds, expertise, time, etc.) has been converted to results.11
To help compensate for the limitations associated with
outcome ratings awarded soon after project implementation
two important development effectiveness criteria were
included in the DAC development effectiveness tool kit
(Ika, 2015, 2018; Ika et al., 2010, 2012):
• Sustainability: the continuation of benefits from a
development intervention after major development
assistance has been completed.
• Impact: the positive and negative, primary, and
secondary long-term effects produced by a development
intervention, directly or indirectly, intended or
unintended
Relevance is about doing the right things while efficacy
and efficiency are about doing things right. Assessing
relevance is critical: achieving the wrong goals efficiently is
counterproductive. Efficacy is also vital: excellence of goals
matters little if the explicit and tacit vision they embody is
not realized. Efficiency matters too since when excessive
costs are incurred or scarce resources are misallocated,
achievement of highly relevant operational goals cannot
qualify as success.
The multi-criteria DAC concepts help to track progress
towards the objectives of project interventions; encourage
project managers to ascertain that the lives of people have
10 “effectiveness” is commonly used to signify the achievement of
The term intended goals without significant shortcomings. However,
the DAC glossary mentions “efficacy” as an alternative term in a
footnote. This is the term used in this paper to preserve the
comprehensive meaning of “development effectiveness” to signify
economic and sustainable achievement of relevant goals and
development impact.
11 Value for money and cost effectiveness are terms often used
interchangeably with the term efficiency
 R. Picciotto / International Journal of Project Management xx (2019) xxx
been tangibly improved; and, in a world of constrained
budgets, induce systematic examination of whether the
projects being implemented are making efficient use of
resources, i.e. that the same results could not have been
achieved through cheaper means.
The relevance, sustainability, and impact criteria are
what most distinguish evaluation from traditional auditing.
Achieving full consistency with beneficiaries' felt needs,
country policies, donor requirements and global priorities in
one fell swoop is rarely feasible. Trade-offs must be struck,
and selectivity practiced lest goals become unrealistically
ambitious (so that failure to achieve them may not be
significant) or project designs become so complex that
operational efficacy and/or efficiency are threatened – the
“Christmas tree” syndrome (Kessides, 1997).
Equally efficacy judgments should be used judiciously.
They should not be wielded to penalise operations that do
not meet overambitious goals especially if the project
delivered value for money by making judicious use of
scarce resources
compared to the alternatives. Finally, the widespread
aspiration to achieve durable results means that assessing
impact and sustainability are critical dimensions of project
effectiveness.
This is where ex-ante project analysis is at its most
demanding and speculative. It is only through ex-post
impact analysis that reliable judgments can be reached
regarding the impact of various exogenous and
unpredictable factors that invariably affect project results.
This is also where the social learning benefits are the
highest.
4.3. Assessing partners' performance
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. Free riding is a pervasive threat to the
success of any project. Virtually all projects rely on
partnerships to achieve outcomes (Liebenthal et al., 2004).
Unless explicit reciprocal obligations among partners are
specified and kept current, responsibility for failure may be
shirked altogether by summarily attributing unsatisfactory
results to poor partner performance while responsibility for
success may be unfairly captured by one of the partners –
irrespective of the value of actual contributions towards
shared objectives.
In other words, 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. When project failure is
ascribed entirely to the implementing agency (irrespective
of exogenous influences and of partners' contributions) it
induces risk aversion: it may even encourage suspension of
projects that fail to meet ambitious goals thus forsaking the
opportunity of adapting them so that they can succeed.
Please cite this article as: R. Picciotto, Towards a ‘New Project Management’ movement? An international development perspective, International Journal of
Project
Management, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2019.08.002
9
It follows that project assessment should go beyond
answering the question of whether a project works or not
(Ika, 2018).12 Along with outcome, sustainability, and
impact ratings, decision makers should equip projects with
objective monitoring indicators that focus on performance
ratings. The extent to which various partners have lived up
to the distinctive responsibilities and reciprocal obligations
embedded in projects. Not all development assistance
agencies have recognized this imperative.
The World Bank and other multilateral development
banks have done so: rather than limiting their evaluative
focus to the attribution question (can the outcomes observed
be ascribed to the project?) they also routinely address the
contribution question – how well did the individual
development partners perform towards the achievement of
project objectives and what might be done to improve their
performance? (Ika and Lytvynov, 2011).
5. Conclusions and recommendations
In line with the purpose of this special issue, this article
aimed to broaden the exchange between project management
thinkers and international development practitioners by
drawing on the history of development cooperation. It
confirms that continuous and objective examination of the
pertinence, realism and resilience of project goals through
monitoring and evaluation should be a critical dimension of
project management. International development projects have
been versatile tools of social action. They have served human
development in all sectors of the developing world. The
broader project management community, both scholars and
practitioners, would benefit from the lessons of development
experience.
First, development practitioners and thinkers had from the
very start conceived of projects as the building blocks of
forward-looking social programs, as policy levers and as
incubators of innovation. This mandate is consistent with the
call for reconsidering the traditional project management
agenda of the contemporary project management literature: it
is time to stop selling short the project management discipline
and consigning it to the conceptual straitjacket of rigid goal
achievement for isolated interventions.
Second, the new operating environment for projects
everywhere is increasingly unstable, turbulent and shaped by
diverse and vocal interests. Thus, the development economics
literature and the rich lessons of development projects
implemented in volatile, complex and crisis ridden contexts
are now highly relevant to developed countries. Adaptable
project management processes, systems thinking as well as
experimental approaches to the project cycle should be
adopted, as appropriate.
Third, the mainstream project management occupation,
despite its longstanding interest in the project success topic
(Ika, 2015, 2018) has neglected a major feature of
12 As of this writing, the DAC criteria are under review. Some influential aid
donors are pressing for inclusion of new criteria such as significance (to
judge the transformative effects and importance of interventions) and
coherence (to ascertain the alignment of aid projects to non-aid development
cooperation interventions, e.g. migration)
10 R. Picciotto / International Journal of Project Management xx (2019) xxx

organizational and social learning: evaluation. This meta-
discipline – a transmission belt between the social sciences
and the nitty gritty world of project management – has long
been an essential instrument of quality enhancement in the
administration of development projects. Here again, there is
room for enriching the menu of the ‘New Project
Management’ agenda.
Fourth, whereas traditional project management has been
heavily shaped by the public administration and organizational
science disciplines, the new authorizing and strategic
environment for projects calls for stronger connections to all
the social sciences, another reason for embracing evaluation as
transmission belt between decision-making and the academy.
Fifth, the development projects experience demonstrates
that the joint imperatives of accountability and learning are
best observed through the application of sensible performance
criteria rather than by succumbing to indicator fetishism and
5.2.1. Lesson 1: reach beyond the results chain
Reliance on the logical framework helps to focus on results
and it has great value in ensuring that success indicators are
identified and tracked but it leaves wide open questions about
the relevance of project goals and the justification of the
means used to pursue them. Resort to program theory that
privileges impact in the public interest and distinguishes
between theories of action that link input, to outputs and
outcomes (involving factors over which project management
has significant control) and theories of change that address the
transformation of outcomes into impact (which largely depend
on contextual factors) is critically important. Systems theory,
complexity thinking, and network analysis should be put to
work.
5.2.2. Lesson 2: treat projects as falsifiable
conjectures

have been shown to matter to the success of projects. They were forged through hard won lessons of experience. They
should supplant traditional project management approaches
that mistakenly concentrate on inputs and outputs without
much attention to outcomes or impacts.
the lure of complex metrics. Use of the time-tested DAC The theory-based approach to projects of Lesson 1 makes
criteria systematic learning possible through experimentation.
5.1. An agenda for research Through refutation of the various conjectures embedded in
project design (made visible by theories of action and change),
Given the above, the following project management projects are gradually adapted to the operating environment to
research domains may deserve further exploration: meet project beneficiaries' expectations. In this context, use of
the new project cycle that gives pride of place to listening,
1) The role of evaluation as a transmission belt between the piloting, demonstration and mainstreaming helps to manage
social sciences and the project management discipline risks by gradually shaping and reshaping projects to achieve
2) The role played by the DAC criteria in promoting durable success.
impact and sustainability in the international development 5.2.3. Lesson 3: adopt sensible project evaluation
sphere and the implications for the overall project criteria
management discipline (see Ika, 2015, 2018; Ika et al., In any sector, a project ought not to be rated successful
2010, 2012) unless it achieves its relevant objectives efficiently, in a
3) Given the well-recognized challenges of complexity in the sustainable fashion and with positive impacts, including
operating environment (Morris, 2013; Shenhar and Dvir, side effects. This recommendation is consistent with a
2007), the lessons of international development projects in systematic approach to project assessment that examines the
volatile, complex and crisis ridden contexts that may be extent to which:
relevant to the broader project management discipline, e.g.
with respect to the project cycle, experimentalism, scaling (i) project objectives are consistent with beneficiaries'
up, etc. (Hirschman, 1995; Rondinelli, 1993; Picciotto, requirements and the authorizing environment
2012) (relevance);
(ii) the objectives of the intervention were achieved or
areexpected to be achieved taking account of their
5.2. Lessons learned relative
importance (efficacy);
Projects have served the development enterprise well over (iii) resources used by the project are expected to be
several decades. Despite numerous policy gyrations, they have converted to results as economically as possible
remained the privileged instrument of development assistance. (efficiency);
Evaluation mechanisms have been instrumental in guiding (iv) project benefits are likely to be sustained
strategic project selection and improving organizational (sustainability);and
learning. Six practical recommendations broadly consistent (v) project results including unintended and side effects
with the thrust of contemporary project management arepositive and significant for society over the long
scholarship emerge from the above narrative. term (impact).

Please cite this article as: R. Picciotto, Towards a ‘New Project Management’ movement? An international development perspective, International Journal of
Project
Management, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2019.08.002
 R. Picciotto / International Journal of Project Management xx (2019) xxx
5.2.4. Lesson 4: assess partners' performance to
improvecollective impact
Projects invariably require collaboration and
participation by many actors. They often involve a bundle
of contractual arrangements that specify the reciprocal
obligations and distinctive roles of each major partner to
discourage freeriding. While overall results (attribution)
should be a major focus of project evaluation, project
management practices should be designed and used to
promote cooperation and generate incentives for superior
performance by all partners. Hence, for accountability to be
strengthened and for principled partnerships to flourish, the
expected contributions of each individual partners to overall
outcomes and impacts should be specified upfront and
assessed objectively and regularly through judiciously
selected indicators. This is essential to ensure coherence,
equity and effectiveness in pursuit of collective impact.
5.2.5. Lesson 5: resort to multi-
method, multidisciplinary approaches
Given the segmentation of knowledge prevalent in the
academy, project management education should give pride
of place to capturing these and other lessons of international
development thinking and experience. Projects cannot be
properly managed without resort to the right mix of
disciplinary approaches and assessment methods. Use of
success indicators cannot substitute for systematic access to
pertinent sector and local knowledge since the choice of
relevant indicators is itself dependent on such knowledge.
5.2.6. Lesson 6: combine project self-evaluation
with independent evaluation
Adequate familiarity with the evaluator's toolkit should be a
standard competency for project designers and managers.
Project managers fly blind without access to timely and
reliable information about project results. Overcoming
information asymmetry is a critical requirement of effective
project management. It follows that project managers
should have ready access to professional monitoring and
evaluation services. But they should also recognize that
self-evaluation reports are inevitably biased and lack public
credibility so that periodic independent evaluation is good
project management practice.
A final word. Geraldi and Soderlund (2018) call for
practiceoriented yet reflective pieces of research. The
embryonic ‘New Project Management’ coalition will help
the leaders and foot soldiers of the project management
discipline to confront the tough challenges they face in an
increasingly demanding and uncertain operational
environment. Conversely, there is little doubt that the
pioneering intellectual contributions of the ‘New Project
Management’ literature would greatly enhance the quality
of international development practice. But this is another
story.
Please cite this article as: R. Picciotto, Towards a ‘New Project Management’ movement? An international development perspective, International Journal of
Project
Management, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2019.08.002
11
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Please cite this article as: R. Picciotto, Towards a ‘New Project Management’ movement? An international development perspective, International Journal of
Project
Management, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2019.08.002