Perspective: Management

Since before the dawn of history, projects have been a principal human activity. Today, projects add significantly to the world’s GDP. They have become a common form of transforming the built environment and the way many organizations manage themselves in the private, public, and voluntary sectors.
Much modern project management guidance emphasizes the principles, structures, processes and techniques involved in delivering the product, service or transformation that is the project’s intended output. Also, both research and practice acknowledge that project executives should possess ‘people skills’. But despite this, too many projects still fail to live up to expectations, which results in both economic and social waste.
As a ubiquitous example of shared intentionality, projects can be thought of as an expression of our essential nature as human beings – what marks us out from all other species. So, perhaps what is needed is more careful and nuanced attention to the people, the context and the relationships that constitute the project itself.