Projects vs. Products — The transformation from project development to agile product development.
Why do managers prefer project development over agile product development and why they are wrong to do so?
There are many ways in which companies organize themselves. As different as the business models of these companies are, so are their organizational structures and processes. Many companies fall into one of two categories:
- Companies with project development
- Companies with product development
The larger a company is, the more it tends to organize itself into different departments along functions (such as: Design, Marketing, Operations, Development, …). This leads to inflexibility of the system and can threaten the existence of the company if changes in the market are not recognized and the company does not react to these changes quickly enough. This is why many companies try to transform themselves back into product development companies. However, this transformation often fails.
This article looks at the differences between project development and product development, considers the advantages and disadvantages of the two forms of development organizations, and examines the issue from a management perspective.
