Icitrap is a flexible workshop‐based training exercise that has been developed to examine and evaluate participatory approaches in project management. This article outlines the background and rationale for the commissioning of the Icitrap exercise and then describes the development and testing methodology used. The experiential nature of the exercise is the key to the fulfilment of its stated aim, which is to foster an understanding of participatory approaches towards project management by drawing out common problems, principles and points for action. Details of the finalized experiential training package, available in text‐based and electronic formats, are presented. The early project process is dominated by engineers and economists, and preoccupations with infrastructure, budgets, schedules and quantification. The way professionals and organisations think and operate biases the process against poor people. A new professionalism and a new paradigm start with people rather than things, and adaptive processes rather than with blueprints (Chambers, 1993). We will encourage participatory approaches which take into account the views and needs of the poor, and which tackle disparities between women and men throughout society (Department for International Development, 1997). Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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How is one to make sense of the world today? Contemporary political and economic events as well as recent technological developments defy conventional analysis. The general breakdown of the post-World War II social order is well underway, visibly evident in the dramatic dissolution of the Eastern European and Soviet socialist economies. The dramatic polarization of wealth and poverty-not just between the technologized and under-technologized nations, or north and south, but also within the technologized center-exposes the "capitalism has won" and "history is over" pronouncements as rather premature. The socioeconomic polarization matures as the powers of science and technology leap ahead at breakneck speed. While the traditional Left has lost much of its appeal, and the world's labor unions are on the defensive, new forces have stepped onto the world stage. Scenes from this drama are as diverse as the Los Angeles rebellion in 1992, the Chiapas uprising beginning in 1994, the regular eruptions in the industrial heart of the U.S., the tent cities and marches of the welfare recipients and the homeless in Philadelphia,

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