In the field of ICT for development there is a general consensus that technology should be seen as a means to an end, not an end to itself. projects. However, development practitioners find themselves wrestling with a fundamental tension between the funders’ need for a ‘plan’ that predicts both the outcomes and benefits of a new technology in advance, and the growing recognition among those at the grassroots level that such predictions often prove ill-founded in practice and that ‘plans’ tend to change. A two-day workshop therefore set out to explore the implications of this tension for all development stakeholders - especially development policy-makers, research councils and funders, researchers and research users - and plot the way forward.