Selecting practices in complex technical planning projects: A pathway for tailoring agile project management into the manufacturing industry

Abstract

Innovation is the key to the success in an increasingly complex business environment. In manufacturing companies, innovation involves the (re)designing business processes and structures. Conventional, plan-driven project management approaches are stretched to their limits. Hybrid models, adopting elements from agile project management domain, gained in importance in the manufacturing area, since they achieve excellent progress in such complex environments. In this contribution, we present a customizing procedure for conventional project management approaches in the manufacturing industry. The method helps practitioners to solve emerging technical problems more effectively by deploying individual agile practices and, therefore, by achieving an individual and dynamic hybridism between stability and agility. We applied the approach in the automotive industry during a filed study at a premium manufacturer of electric and conventional cars.