ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the project development by focusing on some of key aspects of project management. Although many management tasks are routine, four in particular demand cross-cultural skills and understanding: analyzing organizational culture; promoting effective decisionmaking; negotiation and conflict resolution; and enhancing technical assistance and counterpart relationships. Although organizational cultures are infinitely variable, they are not chaotic, and one can begin to build an understanding of their character in terms of a few key variables, such as structures, purposes, procedures, and personalities. Most conflicts can be negotiated. Conflicts arise from perceptions that something is wrong or unsatisfactory, and these discontents give the parties something to negotiate about. Technical assistance—the provision of outside specialists at various points in project development—is a feature of most development efforts. The counterpart relationship is a common feature of projects that seek to build local management capacity in addition to providing project benefits.
