5 What is the project cycle?

The project ‘cycle’ is the dominant way of framing, managing, and understanding development interventions.

Figure 1 The project cycle

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A diagram showing the project cycle is represented by four arrows pointing clockwise, forming the outline of a circle. The top arrow is ‘Exploration and analysis’, pointing to ‘Design’, pointing to ‘Implementation and monitoring’, pointing to ‘Evaluation’, which points back to ‘Exploration and analysis’. In the centre of the circle is the heading ‘Reflection and feedback’.

Figure 1 The project cycle

Many development project management handbooks make reference to the project cycle, but the number of stages and their labels can vary quite widely. Figure 2 below is another example that describes the adaptive management process that you will be working with in this course.

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Figure 2 Adaptive management process

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A diagram illustrating the adaptive management process. The word ‘Stakeholders’ sits in the centre of a circle surrounded by six steps. 1 Assess problem -defining and bounding of the management problem, including the setting of management objectives. 2 Current knowledge - Representing existing understanding through system models that include assumptions and predictions as a basis for further learning. 3 Identify uncertainty - Identifying uncertainty and alternate hypotheses based on evidence and experience. 4 Implement - Implementation of actions/policies to allow continued resource management while learning. 5 Monitor - Monitoring of the effect of new policies. 6 Evaluate - Reflection on, and learning from result outcomes. Comparison with original expectations in order to revise models and/or management actions based on what has been learned.

Figure 2 Adaptive management process

Adaptive management is an increasingly important approach in development. As you will learn in this course, adaptive management places an emphasis on decision-making and management as iterative processes, which aim to learn from and respond to uncertainty and change. In this respect adaptive management differs from arguably more rigid and linear approaches often deployed in intervention design.

The project cycle demonstrates that social change is not linear. It is full of complex interactions and feedback processes; in many respects, it is cyclical. The adaptive management cycle shows the need at points within the process for generating and giving feedback through its focus on identifying uncertainty and monitoring better than the first project cycle. These ‘pauses’ offer moments to reconsider issues of participation, power relations and whose knowledge is being prioritised.

Now complete the following activity.