Adaptive project management for the civil society sector: towards an academic research agenda

Abstract

In order to react adequately to the complex, fast-changing and politicised environments in which development projects operate, donors have started adopting more adaptive project management approaches. Projects dealing with civil society actors in particular are said to benefit from adaptive management. As adaptive management largely depends on locally led and politically smart programming, it is presented as one avenue for addressing long-standing problems of civil society organisations, such as donor dependency, lack of legitimacy and accountability issues. However, the evidence base concerning the effects of adaptive management is scarce and rather anecdotal and an overarching definition of adaptive management has not been established. In order to work towards an academic research agenda for adaptive management, the article systematically reviews twenty-one case studies to generate insights into what donors and implementers consider as adaptive practices, their perceived effects, obstacles and derived recommendations. The article thus contributes to identifying which actors are driving the adaptive agenda, which practices are considered as adaptive, what we can learn from first pilot interventions and which research gaps can be derived from this analysis.

Civil society organizations and managerialism: On the depoliticization of the adaptive management agenda

“…There are a number of loosely coupled initiatives, such as Doing Development Differently, Thinking and Working Politically (TWP), and Problem‐Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA), that all emerged from a critique of the way aid is delivered. These different initiatives/approaches rely on a number of shared principles, suggesting that aid management and delivery benefit from adaptation to changing circumstances, reliance on short feedback cycles based on learning, and local conveners and politically legitimized interventions (for a genealogy and comparison of the different approaches, see Gutheil, 2021). Although it would require more research to dissect how political each of the different approaches was in the beginning, as stated above they were introduced as an antidote to results‐based management approaches to managerialism (Brinkerhoff et al, 2018; O’Donnell, 2016).…”

“…Although the notion of rendering development management more adaptive has gained traction in the aid industry in the last decade, there is no common definition of adaptive management or a common underlying management framework (Gutheil, 2021). There are a number of loosely coupled initiatives, such as Doing Development Differently, Thinking and Working Politically (TWP), and Problem-Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA), that all emerged from a critique of the way aid is delivered.…”

“…The adaptive management agenda was introduced as a corrective to the overemphasis on accountability and technocracy of prevailing results‐based management approaches and thus indirectly to managerialism (Brinkerhoff et al, 2018; O’Donnell, 2016). To date, however, there is little evidence of the use of adaptive management approaches in practice, which makes it difficult to evaluate their potential transformative effects (Gutheil, 2021). In order to contribute to closing this gap, this article presents a case study based on a development programme which aimed to introduce substantive adaptive and social transformative innovations.…”

Aid Unchained: Examining Development Project Management Practices at Aid Chain Interfaces

“…4.Andrews et al (2017), Doing Development Differently Manifesto Community (2014), Gutheil (2021), Honig and Gulrajani (2017), McCulloch and Piron (2019) and Whitty (2019). …”