Agile Project Management in Product Development Projects

Despite the growing popularity of agile project management in the field of IT projects, it has not yet been established in other types of projects (engineering, research & development, organisation of events), presumably because of many reasons: the frequent changes are too expensive, the partial deliverables may not be marketed or used, individuals participate in several projects at the same time, etc. We could argue that the approach will never be widely used. However, we cannot say that certain agile practices cannot be utilized for projects that are still carried out in the traditional way. Therefore, we analysed the product development projects in five manufacturing companies. We wanted first to determine whether they already use any of the agile techniques, and further on - using regression analysis - we determined the actual contribution of individual agile techniques to the project's success. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the applicability of agile project management in the context of product development. We would also like to stimulate professional discussion and researches of agile management of other types of projects, and to encourage the introduction of agile techniques wherever proven to contribute to the success of the projects.