Thinking and acting quickly can be an asset if we're talking about rebuilding stuff that got broken in the course of conflict. That of course is reconstruction, not development, and we have to be aware of the difference.

One critical point at the start of any "development" effort (actually at the start of most things we do) is to realistically assess our goals, meaning strip away all the pretty jargon and look at what we are really trying to accomplish. If the primary purpose of a "development" effort is to make a bad government look good or to persuade people to like the government we think they ought to like, we're looking at a big red flag and might do well to reassess our course before starting on it.