The project business emerged as a major new form of industrial organisation and management practice in the second half of the twentieth century. Since the 1960s there have been numerous studies of project management techniques, specific types of projects (e.g. R&D and new product development) and project activities in particular industries such as pharmaceuticals and construction. But until recently the wider significance of the project for innovation and business strategy has gone largely unnoticed. Managers, policy makers, business commentators and scholars have been preoccupied with understanding, adopting and refining the principles of high-volume production. These principles were pioneered by some of the world's largest and most successful American firms like Ford, General Motors and AT&T and later improved upon by Japanese corporations such as Toyota. These firms created large, top-down, hierarchical, functional organisations, well designed for producing and selling standardised consumer goods and services in high volumes and making repetitive decisions in the comparatively stable industrial environment of growing mass markets.

Efforts to implement and improve high-volume techniques have led to significant advances in management tools in recent years (e.g. lean production, business process re-engineering and mass customisation). Yet the returns from such improvements are diminishing and will continue to do so in the future. Even today, for many firms seeking stability in the face of fragmenting mass markets, accelerating technological change and intensifying global competition in low-cost manufacturing, the reliance on high-volume management techniques and large, semi-permanent organisations is appealing.