Critical success factors in project management globally and how they may be applied to aid projects

This paper reports upon progress towards a doctoral study on the antecedents of project success in aid/emergency relief projects. We argue that there are useful project management (PM) approaches that may be universally applied to most, if not all, projects to contribute to successful PM delivery. However, when reflecting upon field-experience, some of these PM approaches appear to simply not function in the environment typified by project aid and emergency relief projects. This raises some interesting questions. What does the literature on PM success factors take as its underlying assumptions that may not apply to aid projects? What are some of the more problematic issues that aid project deliverers face which are significantly different from delivering, for example, commercial projects in difficult or distressing circumstances? How can we best approach studying such projects and to summarise in a simple but effective universal framework, the contextual project success constants and methods for application in any environment, particularly the PM Framework and application undertaking Aid / Relief Projects. This paper also has the benefit of a PMI research grant.