TOWARDS AGILE PROJECTMANAGEMENT AND SOCIAL INNOVATION IN THE CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY

misbe2011 Tracking Number 179

Towards agile projectmanagement? Meredith distinguishes a major development in the field of general management that traditional, hierarchical management is increasingly replaced by so called "Consensual management”. Such a development also occurs in the field of projectmanagement. Agile projectmanagement (originated in the world of IT and software development) has many characteristics of lean thinking. In the Manifesto of the Agile Alliance is stated: "We are Uncovering better ways of Developing software by doing it and helping others do it. Through this work we have come to value: Individuals and interactions over processes and tools, working software over comprehensive documentation, customer collaboration over contract negotiation, responding to change over following a plan. That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more”. Agile stands for the individual and interaction, rather than procedures and tools, results over paper security and respond to change over the finishing a tight plan once it’s drawn up. In that sense, agile fits more into the current complex and turbulent era than the traditional project management. Agility and flexibility are important, because projects have to adapt to inevitable changes. This environmental turbulency leaves no room for bureaucratic organisations and unwavering procedures. Important are: self-managed or self-organizing teams, a lot of customer interaction, "even when there isn’t a problem to be solved!”, motivated individuals, and the leader is more a coach and facilitator who clears obstacles. A controversy between agile and traditional project management? We will discuss the various ways to choose the appropriate project management model for a specific project. If there is a large amount of complexity and many different stakeholders and interests (and potential controversies) in an absolutely unique project, then don’t choose a hierarchical and bureaucratic project management model. Research In early 2008 we conducted a study into current and desired projectmanagmentcompetences in the construction industry. This was a survey in which the self-image of a representative group of 130 project managers from both clients, builders and consultants was examined. This study gave a clear picture of developments in the industry, the advent of integrated contracts made competences such as cooperation and communication more important while the hard technical skills were decreasingly necessary. This raised the question whether the project leader of the future still needs to be an engineer. The results from this research strongly support the trends as described before. Finally, concluding Both our survey and the literature describe a trend towards what we call agile projectmanagement. Some conclusions in advance: • The ICT sector is far ahead on the construction industry in the field of research on project management. The construction industry is relatively invisible in the scientific debate. The good news is that we can learn a lot from this sector. • The most current ongoing research and consultancy has excessive attention to Taylorist projectmanagement. Since there is a break towards agile project management, new theory and research is required (including a research agenda!). Besides structure, more attention to the "soft side" of the profession is imperative.