Abstract
The purpose of the paper is to advise to optimization improvement pathways in territorial development and post-conflict stabilization in Ukraine that currently undergoes change from the «firefighting» real-time operational mode to the routine bureaucratic mode. The major challenges include the resolutions of deficient operational models such as: forgetting, chemical dependency of management, inability to make decisions, reluctance to start a dialogue, «cut-off» solutions and some others. Methodology. A desk and in-depth study is carried out of several national territorial stabilization programs dealing with the government that ensure infrastructural support to post-conflict regions and communities in the East of Ukraine. It is studied how the programs are managed by the controversy of the results-based and process-based approaches (2015-2016 data) via NGOs and subcontractors. Improving stabilization tools, it leverages transformation of its own systems into a firm yet flexible entity. Results of the research showed that stabilization project systems should seek a balance between the results-based and process-based ends of management, the first focusing on quicker and more flexible lower-level results, and the second building bureaucracy via continuous processes. Practical implementation. Regional subcontractors can improve satisfaction and widen participation by supporting informal initiative from the grassroots level. A good solution to resolve operational conflicts is hiring a helping hand to the administrator – a typical results-based manager who will help follow the harmony to achieve immediate results. Any improvement in the transparency of the system and the formalization of relations between the beneficiary and the subcontractor, shifted in addressing issues at the level below, does not require exclusive access to the principal decision-maker, and would simply and easily be implemented at the technical level of the beneficiary institutions. Value/originality. The article concludes with the statement of the two radically different approaches to management systems that work in such projects, the first on the basis of a result, and the second in the process, and the two being incompatible. There are people and organizations propagating result and work to achieve it, but working with the staff aimed at the process because they can either not reach or stretch operation, hoping that they will thus extend their contracts.