UdZ 01.21

SPECTRUM – APPLIED RESEARCH 32 / UdZ 2-2021 Classic Hybrid Agile Waterfall Water-Scrum- Fall SCRUM V- Model V- SCRUM KANBAN PRINCE2 SCRUMBAN Extreme Programming Feature-driven Development Design Thinking Figure 2: Project management systems examined Often, SME project management is still based on Outlook and Excel 2 . In this respect, they lag well behind the maturity of project management in large companies 3 . But which project management system is best suited for SMEs in mechanical and plant engineering and which tools can be used? The authors of the ‘FuturePro’ project investigated precisely this question and provide SMEs with the appropriate answers in the form of a self-check and an implementation roadmap generated from it. The self-check 4 enables companies to record their own status quo and project management requirements on the basis of 44 questions. The questions take into account various framework conditions for project management systems (PMS) (Figure 1). A consortium of 23 companies was involved in the development and validation of the questions. The consortium consisted mainly of SMEs from the mechanical and plant engineering sector, but larger companies and SMEs from related industries also participated. This helped to take into account and work out special features of the target group and differences from other companies. The respective answers of the companies are then compared with different PMSs (Figure 2). An algorithm is used to calculate which PMS best covers the requirements and at the same time requires the least change to the status quo. In this way, SMEs receive the PMS that is best suited to their needs. The project also investigated the extent to which the PMSs considered are suitable for SMEs at all, or whether the PMS needs to be adapted specifically for SME needs. The investigations revealed that the most common PMSs can already meet the requirements of SMEs today. What is needed, therefore, is a low-effort implementation and concrete measures for the successful implementation of established PMS in SMEs. Implementation Roadmap Method Projects Portfolio Resource M anagement Prioritization Budget Risk Management Figure 3: Contents of the downloadable individual guide (own presentation) Thesemeasures are provided by a guide (Figure 3, p. 66), which is generated after the self-check and made available for download as a PDF. The core element here is the implementation roadmap. Basedon the answers and the selectedPMS, this roadmap shows which of the company’s requirements are met by the PMS and which are not. In addition, the roadmap lists concrete measures for successful implementation and also shows which necessary requirements the company already fulfills. The subsequent methodological explanation of the PMS supports the procedure by defining necessary roles and processes and naming the tools 4 You can find the self check at: futurepro-tool.fir.de