Recent works have shown that the variable neighborhood search (VNS) algorithm can be improved by using a reactive component. A component is reactive if its behavior changes dynamically depending on the information obtained from the current run, or depending on the instance to solve. This paper gives a review of these recent works, and proposes a new scheme to select reactively the move used in the shaking step of VNS. This new mechanism is particularly relevant to solve problems involving various types of decisions. For instance, an application of the resulting Reactive-VNS to a short-term production-planning problem is given. Experimental results show that Reactive-VNS outperforms the classical VNS approach on the latter problem.