ABSTRACT
In this chapter we discuss the critical importance of projects and thus of project management for economic value creation. Megatrends such as digitalisation and globalisation have a particular influence here because they reinforce the necessity of projects as a form of work, and they also place specific new demands on them.
Although project management methods have been developed over many decades, success rates still leave much to be desired. This applies not least to the world of IT projects with their fast pace, and has led to a paradigm shift in this domain – from a plan-driven to an agile approach.
In order to meet the requirements of modern project management, which can be characterised by flexibility, lightness, practicability but also universality (not all projects are IT projects), it is necessary, according to the author, to “stretch an umbrella over the different approaches”, so to speak, which makes it possible to select the optimal approach specifically depending on the context of a project. This has motivated the development of Lean Project Management.
