Deconstructing the 'project'

June 2, 2019 5:22 PM

Years ago I read an interview online with a woman who was challenging the idea of the 'project'. She asked questions like, "Why does the community sector use a model developed for the engineering and military fields? Why should work that involves relationship-building be limited to one year, two years, five years?" She wasn't criticising certain project management tools or techniques; she was challenging the concept of project management. Help me find the interview, the woman's name, or any other thinking that deconstructs the 'project' or 'project management' in this way?

It may have been in the context of international development/aid. It wasn't along the lines of INCITE's critique of the not-for-profit industrial complex; it was a specific analysis of the project model itself. She may have been arguing instead for 'partnerships', where an organisation would simply agree to support another organisation with certain conditions for a long period of time. It's proved impossible to google so I'm hoping it rings a bell for somebody. Please hope me, MF!

posted by trotzdem_kunst to Society & Culture (1 answer total)

Not the interview you're looking for, but this paper critiques project management as a mechanistic planning approach built on outmoded, overly prescriptive approaches, disconnected from evolving literature on strategy, relying on unlikely assumptions about stability and relationships, and so on.
posted by some little punk in a rocket at 8:59 PM on June 2, 2019 [3 favorites]