Transforming Infrastructure Development after Crises: Agile Project Management Perspectives

Abstract

The large-scale destruction of infrastructure facilities during military events in Ukraine has a destructive effect on the processes of social development. During the recovery period, the main attention should be focused on the active reconstruction of cities on the basis of agile management and sustainable growth. The purpose of the research is to analyze the key concepts of agile project management for infrastructure development in post-crisis conditions and to critically assess the transferability of these concepts—originally developed for software—to physical infrastructure reconstruction. The study identifies potential risks for the urban environment development strategy caused by infrastructure destruction, quantified at 137 billion USD in direct losses as of the end of 2024. The features of the flexible infrastructure project management system have been examined, including iterativeness, incrementality, communication and collaboration, adaptation to change, and focus on results. Key approaches to agile project management are considered—in particular, Scrum, Kanban, Lean development, and scaling frameworks such as SAFe. Unlike purely conceptual treatments, this paper explicitly addresses the documented frictions of applying agile to physical infrastructure—physical dependencies, safety regulation, and procurement constraints—and argues that agile in infrastructure restoration should be understood as an approach that differentiates large-scale projects into short iterations while combining traditional elements with innovative methods for greater flexibility and transparency. The paper concludes with practical tools and a seven-principle framework applicable to post-crisis reconstruction in Ukraine.