Project-Based Management Development

In the earlier parts of this book we have attempted to do two main things; firstly to describe the current state and practices of management development within organizations and secondly to suggest an analytical approach to management development which helps to generate information for decision-taking at different points in the organization. But analysis should not stand on its own — so we are also concerned to examine and discuss action. Specifically in this chapter we focus on an approach to management development which has been applied in a wide range of organizations. The approach is of interest because it appears to cope with some of the current problems of management development and to be applicable to a range of organizational situations. However we want to stress very strongly that our contingency view of management development means that in no sense would we recommend that project-based development is necessarily the most appropriate vehicle or main form of activity for management development in any or every particular organization. Rather in moving from diagnosis to prescription we would bring Project-Based Management Development (P.M.D.) to the attention of the reader because it is a comparatively new approach which appears to offer a number of advantages for in-house development activity.