Guidelines for managing complex department store construction projects based on Lean Production and Agile Project Management

Abstract Construction projects are becoming increasingly complex. Traditional project management approach does not consider all the complex attributes involved in some projects and assumes that there are general solutions for managing them, without taking into account the specific context in which they are situated. Therefore, there is a need to develop project management methods and tools that consider both the complexity involved and the characteristics of the context. The Lean Production philosophy and the Agile Project Management approach have been pointed out in the literature as two alternatives to support such projects. This paper aims to propose a set of guidelines for managing complex department store construction projects, based on the two theoretical perspectives mentioned above. Using Design Science Research as a methodological approach, an empirical study was carried out in a Brazilian department store enterprise, which is a construction client. The theoretical contribution of this paper is an analysis of the overlaps and complementarities between Lean Production and Agile Project Management.