Multimode resource-constrained project scheduling in flexible projects

Abstract

Abstract Flexible agile and extreme project management methods have become increasingly popular among practitioners, particularly in the IT and R&D sectors. In contrast to the theoretically and algorithmically well-established and developed trade-off and multimode methods applied in traditional project management methods, flexible project scheduling methods, which are applied in agile, hybrid, and especially extreme project management, lack a principled foundation and algorithmic handling. The aim of this paper is to fill this gap. We propose a matrix-based method that provides scores for alternative project plans that host flexible task dependencies and undecided, supplementary task completion while also handling the new but unplanned tasks. In addition, traditional multimode resource-constrained project scheduling problems are also covered. The proposed method can bridge the flexible and traditional approaches.