1 Decision-making models

The object of the management of a development intervention is a moving target: patterns of interaction among actors, and between actors and their environment are constantly shifting. Designers of development projects have to consider:

• norms, values, and beliefs within society and how they influence social and power relations
• organisations (along with the customary and formalised procedures for decision-making that guide organisational behaviour)
• institutionalised practices and formal ‘rules’ (laws and legislation) that frame and constrain the behaviour of both individuals and organisations
• how individual and organisational actors are connected to each other in different ways, in different relations of power and influence.

Patterns of behaviour are also influenced by conditions and events in the external environment over which development actors have little control. This can include earthquakes and tsunamis, but also larger-scale social forces, such as political or economic contexts. This makes development management rich in complexity and sometimes rather messy!

You will recall that in Week 1 it was noted that development actors often see development quite differently from the communities they are working with. In the next section you will start with watching a Ted Talk that seeks to explore how low income groups address life’s challenges.