Abstract
In recent years, the Internet of Things (IoT) has attracted increasing attention. The IoT connects “things and things,” “people and people,” and “things and people,” and the mechanism for cooperation involves being connected through the Internet following recent advances in sensors and devices. Hardware, such as automobiles or home appliances, is connected to the Internet to enable monitoring and control. Analyzing “Big data” such as sensor data and images generated by surveillance cameras will promote the creation of new products and services. The IoT offers the possibility of significant changes in people’s lives and businesses. However, to realize this possibility, the combination of various industries and technologies that have had no contact until now requires a mechanism for creating new products and services that embodies the newly envisioned concepts. Project and Program Management (P2M) is a program management technique that can be used to integrate multiple related projects to solve diverse and complex problems that cannot be resolved by a single project. I propose a methodology for program management for the IoT geared toward fast-moving business, combining agile development and P2M. This paper examines the validity of applying P2M to IoT businesses using the case of the German government’s Industry 4.0, a typical example of the worldwide trend of digitization of the manufacturing industry using the IoT and Industrial Value Chain Initiative (IVI) in the Japanese manufacturing industry’s IoT.
