Introducing AgiLean to construction project management

Authors

  • Selim Tugra Demir Built Environment and Sustainable Technologies [BEST] Research Institute, School of the Built Environment, Liverpool John Moores University United Kingdom
  • David James Bryde Professor in Project Management, Built Environment and Sustainable Technologies [BEST] Research Institute, School of the Built Environment, Liverpool John Moores University United Kingdom
  • Begum Sertyesilisik Associate Professor, Department of Architecture, Istanbul Technical University Turkey

Keywords:

Agile, AgiLean, Leagile, Lean, Qualitative Research

Abstract

The complexity of construction projects is the main reason, why the construction industry is searching better ways of managing construction projects. Recently, the industry tries to get benefit from the adoption of two management methodologies. On the one hand there is Lean construction, which works well for stable and predictable project environments. On the other hand, there is Agile project management [PM], which works well for dynamic and uncertain project environments. Construction projects, however, are exposed to predictable and paradoxically uncertain environments at the same time. Hence there is a need for a methodology which merges Lean and Agile to a holistic unit. The objective of this contribution is to introduce such a methodology. Such a methodology does not exist so far and is different from the “Leagile” approach, which uses Lean and Agile methods in the execution phase sequentially. Through undertaking a comprehensive literature review and through conducting 22 interviews with practitioners in the field of construction PM, Lean, Agile a new methodology is introduced, which is conceptualised as “AgiLean PM”.

Author Biographies

  • Selim Tugra Demir, Built Environment and Sustainable Technologies [BEST] Research Institute, School of the Built Environment, Liverpool John Moores University United Kingdom

    S. Tugra Demir (BEng, MEng, MBA) is a researcher in the Built Environment and Sustainable Technologies (BEST) Research Institute, School of the Built Environment at Liverpool John Moores University. Tugra has studied Civil Engineering with the focus on Construction Management (Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering), International Project Management (Master’s Degree in Engineering, awarded best thesis and best student) and Executive Leadership (MBA with Distinction). He has worked in the fields of project management and construction management in Germany and in the UAE. During his academic career he is known as an outstanding researcher, where his particular interests are in the areas of risk management, stakeholder management, agile, lean, leagile and agilean. As such he has had a number of peer reviewed journal papers accepted for publication and he has also a number of papers accepted to present at international conferences.

  • David James Bryde, Professor in Project Management, Built Environment and Sustainable Technologies [BEST] Research Institute, School of the Built Environment, Liverpool John Moores University United Kingdom

    David James Bryde is a Professor in project management in BEST Research Institute, School of the Built Environment at Liverpool John Moores University. He joined LJMU in 1991 and obtained his PhD in Project Management. His research interests focus on modern management methods, such as Lean, Agile, Uncertainty Management, Earned Value Analysis (EVA), Supply Chain Management and Stakeholder Engagement Methods. He is a member of the Earned value International Advisory Panel. A unifying theme to David’s research is the impact of these different management methods on delivering environmental, social and economic sustainability for key project stakeholders. David has published widely in peer-reviewed journals. He has presented his research at a wide range of international conferences. He has been invited to contribute book chapters by Palgrave MacMillan and Pearson Education Limited in the UK and Nova Publishers in the US. He is frequently invited to present his work through guest presentation and articles. He is a member of the Association of Project Management and the Project Management Institute.

  • Begum Sertyesilisik, Associate Professor, Department of Architecture, Istanbul Technical University Turkey

    Begum Sertyesilisik is Associate Professor in the Department of Architecture, Faculty of Architecture at Istanbul Technical University. Begum is also a Visiting Professor in the School of the Built Environment at Liverpool John Moores University. She has been awarded a PhD in the field of construction contracts at the Middle East Technical University. She obtained a MSc in the field of Project Management at the Istanbul Technical University and a MBA at the Istanbul Technical University. She received a BSc in Architecture at Istanbul Technical University. Her research interests focus on agile, lean, project management, sustainability, contract and dispute management. Begum has published widely in international journals and presented at various national and international conferences. Furthermore, Begum has published also a number of books concerned about contract and disputes management. She is a member of the Chamber of Architects in Istanbul and of the Chartered Institute of Building.

References

Agile Alliance, :. (2001). www.agilemanifesto.org. Retrieved 10 1, 2010, from http://www.agilemanifesto.org/

Andersson, R., Eriksson, H., & Torstensson, H. (2006). Similarities and differences between TQM, six sigma and lean. The TQM Magazine, 18(3), 282-296.

Ankrah, N., Proverbs, D., Antwi, A., & Debrah, Y. (2005). Factors Influencing Organisational Culture: A Construction Project Perspective. Building Research Summaries, pp. 729-742.

Atiken, J., Christopher, M., & Towill, D. (2002). Understanding, Implementing and Exploiting Agility and Leanness. International Journal of Logistics: Research and Applications, 5(1), 59-74.

Ballard, G., & Howell, G. (2003). Lean project management. Building Research & Information, 31(2), 119-133.

Ballard, G., & Howell, G. A. (2004). Competing Construction Management Paradigms. Lean Construction Journal, 1(1), 38-45.

Barlow, J. (1998). From craft production to mass customisation? Customer focused approaches to house building. Proceedings IGLC 98 (pp. 1-18). Guaruja: International Group for Lean Construction.

Bertelsen, S. (2003). Complexity - Construction in a new perspective. IGLC-11. Blacksburg: International Group for Lean Construction.

Boehm, R. E. (2005). www.kuperpresents.com. Retrieved 10 02, 2010, from http://kuperpresents.com/nycspin/Resources/RayBohem%20-%20AgileProjMgmt.pdf

Booth, R. (1996). Agile Manufacturing. Engineering Management Journal, 6(2), 117.

Bryde, D. J. (2008). Is construction different? A comparison of perceptions of project management performance and practices by business sector and project type. Construction Management Economics, 26(3), 315-327.

Bryman, A. (2012). Social Research Methods (4th ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.

Burlereaux, M., Gautier, S., & Rieu, C. (2013). Agile: An iron first in a velvet glove. The Journal of Modern Project Management, 1(1), 57-69.

Chen, Q., Reichard, G., & Beliveau, Y. (2007). Interface management - facilitator of lean construction and agile project management. International Group for Lean Construction (pp. 57-66). Michigan: IGLC.

Chin, G. (2004). Agile Project Management:how to Succeed in the Face of Changing Project Requirements. New York: AMACOM.

Collyer, S., & Warren, C. M. (2009). Project management approaches for dynamic environments. International Journal of Project Management, 27(4), 335-364.

Court, P. F., Pasquire, C., & Gibb, A. (2009). A lean and agile construction system as a set of countermeasures to improve health, safety and productivity in mechanical and electrical construction. Lean Construction Journal, 1(1), 61-76.

Court, P., Pasquire, C., Gibb, A., & Bower, D. (2006). Design of lean and agile construction system for a large and comoplex mechanical and electrical project. International Group for Lean Construction (pp. 1-10). Santiego: IGLC.

Cui, Y., & Olsson, N. O. (2009). Project flexibility in practice: An empirical study of reduction lists in large governmental projects. International Journal of Project Management, 27(5), 447-455.

Cullmann, S. (2013). Creativity and Project Management: Managing the unexpected and permanent change. The Journal of Modern Project Management, 1(1), 87-101.

Cusumano, M. A. (1994). The Lmits of "Lean". Sloan Management Review, 35(4), 27-32.

Denyer, D., Kutsch, E., Lee-Kelley, E. (., & Hall, M. (2011). Exploring reliability in information systems programmes. International Journal of Project Management, 29(4), 442-454.

Eccles, R. (1981). The quasifirm in the constuction industry. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 2(1), 335-357.

Egan, J. (1998). Rethinking Construction. London: Construction Task Force.

Fernandez, D. J., & Fernandez, J. D. (2008). Agile Project Management - Agilisim versus traditional approaches. Journal of Computer Information Systems, Winter 2008 - 2009, 10-17.

Gabriel, E. (1997). The lean approach to project management. International Journal of Project Management, 15(4), 205-209.

Gann, D. M. (1996). Construction as a manufacturing process? Similarities and differeces between industrialized housing and car production in Japan. Construction Management and Economics, 14(5), pp. 437-450.

Garel, G. (2013). A history of project management models: From pre-models to the standard models. International Journal of Project Management, 31(5), 663-669.

Gidado, K. (1996). Project complexity: The focal point of construction product planning. Construction Management and Economics, 14(3), pp. 213-225.

Goldsby, T. J., Griffis, S. E., & Roath, A. S. (2006). Modeling Lean, Agile and Leagile Supply Chain Strategies. Journal of Business Logistics, 27(1), 57-80.

Hines, P., Holweg, M., & Rich, N. (2004). Learning to evolve - A review of contemporary lean thinking. International Journal of Operations & Production Management, 24(10), 994-1011.

Howell, G. A. (1999). What is Lean Construction. Berkeley: University of California.

Hunt, J. (2006). Agile Software Construction. London: Springer Verlag.

Iacocca Institute. (1992). 21st Century Manufacturing Enterprise Strategy Report Summary. Bethlehem: Lehig University.

Ibbs, W., & Liu, M. (2011). An improved methodology for selecting similar working days for measured mile analysis. International Journal of Project Management, 29(6), 773–780.

Karlesky, M., & Voord, M. V. (2008). Agile Project Management (or, Burining your Gantt Charts). Embedded Systems Conference (pp. 1-8). Boston: Atomic Object & X-Rite.

Kettunen, P. (2009). Adopting key lessons from agile manufacturing to agile software product development - A comparative study. Technovation, 29(6), 408-422.

Koskela, L. (2000). An exploration towards a production theory and its application to construction. Helsinky: Technical Research Center of Finnland.

Koskela, L., & Howell, G. (2002). The Underlying Theory of Project Management is Obsolote. Proceedings of the PMI Research Conference (pp. 293-302). Seattle: Project Management Institute.

Labelle, F., & Leyrie, C. (2013). "Stakepartner Management" in projects: A turn-of-the-century - Turnaround at Alcan. The Journal of Modern Project Management, 1(1), 33-43.

Liker, J. K. (2004). The Toyota Way: 14 Management Principles from the World's Greatest Manufacturer. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Lu, W., Olofsson, T., & Stehn, L. (2011). A lean-agile model of homebuilders' production systems. Construction Management and Economics, 29(1), 25-35.

Mason-Jones, R., Naylor, B., & Denis, R. T. (2000). Engineering the leagilen supply chain. International Journal of Agile Management Systems, 2(1), 54-61.

Naim, M., & Barlow, J. (2003). An innovative supply chain strategy for customized housing. Construction Management and Economics, 21(6), 593-602.

Naim, M., Naylor, J., & Barlow, J. (1999). Developing lean and agile supply chains in the UK housebuilding industry. International Group for Lean Construction 7 (pp. 159-170). Berkeley: IGLC.

Naylor, B. J., Naim, M. M., & Berry, D. (1999). Leagility: Integrating the lean and agile manufacturing paradigms in the total supply chain. International Journal of Production Economics, 62(1), 107-118.

Ndihokubwayo, R., & Haupt, T. (2010). Waste reduction through lean and agile thinking: case of variation orders. The Construction, Building and Real Estate Research Conference of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors [COBRA 2010] (pp. 1-11). Paris: RICS.

Ohno, T. (1988). Toyota production system: beyond large-scale production. New York: Productivity Press.

Owen, R., & Koskela, L. (2006a). Agile Construction Project Management. 6th International Postgraduate Research Conference in the Built and Human Environment (pp. 22-33). Delft: University of Salford.

Owen, R., & Koskela, L. (2006b). An Agile Step Forward in Project Management. 2nd Specialty Conference on Leadership and Management in Construction and Engineering (pp. 216-224). Grand Bahama: ASCE.

Owen, R., Koskela, L., Henrich, G., & Codinhoto, R. (2006). Is agile project management applicable to construction? International Group for Lean in Construction 14 (pp. 51-66). Santiago,Chile: IGLC.

Parnell-Klabo, E. (2006). Introducing Lean Principles with Agile Practices at a Fortune 500 Company. Agile Conference (pp. 1-8). Minneapolis: IEEE.

Qi, F., Xuejun, X., & Gong, Z. (2007). Research on Lean, Agile and Leagile Supply Chain. International Conference on Wireless Communications, Networking and Mobile Computing (pp. 4902 - 4905). Shanghai: IEEE Engineering Management Society.

Ribeiro, F. L., & Fernandes, M. T. (2010). Exploring agile methods in construction small and medium enterprises: a case study. Journal of Enterprise Information Management, 23(2), 161-180.

Robertsen, M., & Jones, C. (1999). Application of lean production and agile manufacturing concepts in a telecommunications environment. International Journal of Agile Management Systems, 1(1), 14-16.

Saunders, M., Lewis, P., & Thornhill, A. (2009). Research methods for business students (5th ed.). Essex: Pearson Education.

Serpell, A., & Alarcon, L. F. (1998). Construction process improvement methodology for construction projects. International Journal of Project Management, 16(4), 215-221.

Sheffield, J., & Lemetayer, J. (2013). Factors associated with the software development agility of successful projects. International Journal of Project Management, 31(3), 459-472.

Sidwell, A. C. (1990). Project management: Dynamics and performance. Construction Management and Econmics, 8(2), 159-178.

Slack, N., Chambers, S., Johnson, R., & Betts, A. (2008). Operations and process management - principles and practice for strategic impact (2nd ed.). Harlow: Pearson Education.

van Hoek, R. I. (2000). The thesis of leagility revisited. International Journal of Agile Management Systems, 2(3), 196-201.

Warren, C. (2002). Qualitative Interviewing . In J. F. Gubrium, & J. Holstein, Handbook of Interview Research: Context and Method. (pp. 83-102). California: SAGE Publications.

Winch, G. (1989). The construction firm and the construction project: a transaction cost approach. Construction Management and Economics, 7(4), 331-345.

Winch, G. (1998). Zephyrs of creative destruction: understanding the management of innovation in construction. Building Research & Information, 26(4), 268-279.

Winch, G. (2006). Towards a theory of construction as production by projects. Building Research & Information, 34(2), 164-174.

Winch, G. M. (2003). How innovative is construction? Comparing aggregated data on construction innovation and other sectors - a case of apples and pears. Construction Management and Economics, 21(6), 651-654.

Womack, J. P., & Jones, D. T. (2003). Lean Thinking- Banish Waste and create Wealth in Your Corporation (2nd ed.). London: Simon & Schuster.

Womack, J. P., Jones, T. J., & Roos, D. (1990). The machine that changed the world. New York: Rawson Associates.

Wysocki, R. K. (2006). Effective Software Project Management. Indianapolis: Wiley Publishing.

Downloads

Published

2022-05-20

Issue

Vol. 1 No. 3 (2014): The Journal of Modern Project Management

Section

Articles-JMPM

License

Copyright (c) 2022 Selim Tugra Demir, David James Bryde, Begum Sertyesilisik

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

How to Cite

Introducing AgiLean to construction project management. (2022). The Journal of Modern Project Management, 1(3). https://journalmodernpm.com/manuscript/index.php/jmpm/article/view/136

Similar Articles

31-40 of 403

You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.