This article explores the perennial tension between the demands of management for quality projects that can be used to attract new markets and students and the traditional scholarly approach to learning. Universities are unique environments compared to industry settings. They are unique in that the responsibility for the quality of the teaching material rests with highly autonomous professionals. The feeling is that the application of traditional project management techniques with tight deadlines and the production of a product at the end does not fit scholarly activities requiring reflection and discourse. The costs of setting up new learning technologies and the skill sets required to generate quality materials are driving the need for more effective course development processes. This is forcing institutions to reassess how course development projects using new technology are undertaken. This paper discusses these issues and offers a model that aims to combine the effectiveness of project management techniques with the scholarly approach of action learning, based on research and the experience at RMIT University (Australia). (Contains 20 references.) (Author/MES)