Development management: Plain or fancy? Sorting out some muddles

Abstract This paper explains why development thinking has been caught up in polemical divisions, and cautions against skipping over a sound, basic approach to development management in favour of more complex approaches which in some cases are premature or inappropriate. While we largely recognize the need for better development management, we have not been clear about how to get it. Instead, symbols have been made out of management models and means confused with ends, techniques with goals. Because, for example, the participation of people in their own growth is valued, it is assumed that Western management models that stress this value can be exported, wholesale, to a far less organized Third World contexta perfect example of confusing techniques with goals. When projects are no longer run on rhetoric, and means confused with ends, the need to choose between management models (such as ‘people‐centred’ versus ‘blueprint’ management) ends. Instead, actual field conditions can be focused on. Actual conditions often demand nuts‐and‐bolts skills first. What is needed (and described here) are straightforward, basic management skills to meet equally straightforward, basic weaknesses in organizational structure. Neither fancy nor fashionable, these basics are the forgotten backbone of development management.