What is it about?
We critically explore the mismatch between the business logic that underpins project management approaches and the social justice aspirations that drive community development activities.
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Why is it important?
The unquestioned assumption of the primacy of projects and their management in the delivery of social good ignores the potential for oppression and exploitation within them. We argue that project management is an unsuitable approach to those community based activities that seek to liberate communities from oppression. We propose an incorporation of critical, participative and democratic processes to the organizing of community based activities that align with their social purpose and intent.
Perspectives
The challenge of organizing, coordinating and stewarding community based initiatives lies not only within the diverse complex and dynamic nature of these initiatives, it is also most sharply felt in the unquestioning adoption of the ‘delivery' mechanisms popular and in use within the for profit sector. The adoption of business approaches (project management in this case) are not merely a ‘bad fit’, they can be in direct conflict with the purposes to which they are put. The invisibility of the power that constitutes business approaches, tools and techniques that have been constituted and devised with the efficient exploitation of resources as their primary aim, can undermine and damage the possibility of achieving social justice.
Dr Eamonn O Laocha
Douglas College
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The logic of projects and the ideal of community development, International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, June 2016, Emerald,
DOI: 10.1108/ijmpb-09-2015-0092.
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