History of Project Management

History of Project Management   

Project Management may strike one as a recent buzzword, however the concept has been around for thousands of years. The history of project management dates back to ancient Egyptian times where projects such as building pyramids required the managing of scope, materials, budgets, and workforce to create deliverables in a timeframe.   

Fast forward to the early 20th century, we have a person named Henry Gantt who created a chart to show complex project schedules. The chart today is known as a “Gantt” chart and is widely used in Project Management. Project Management continued to evolve as more and more things were added. Frederic Taylor an associate of Henry Gantt introduces theories of management. His theories made tasks efficient by using fine tuning techniques. Other methods of scheduling were also developed such as Program Evaluation Review Technique (PERT) and The Critical Path Method (CPM). PERT scheduling charts analyzed tasks to identify the minimal amount of time required to completing a project. CPM is an algorithm for scheduling project activities where it list all activities required for a project, the length of time for each activity, and any dependencies between the activities. Although these methods of scheduling are not exactly what is found in modern society, Project Management still remains as the process for overlooking the planning, organizing, and implementing of a project.

In modern day, we heavily integrate new technologies into our projects and the tools that manage them. Examples such as the internet and computers greatly help us discover risks and increase efficiency of our work. The project management process lifecycle tends to follow the general structure of gathering analysis about the requirements and resources needed to complete the project. Developing the architectural design, executing the implementation followed by finalizing and maintaining the project are all part of the structure. Strategies in project management differ in workloads and rates at which the steps are individually completed. With such technologies, the project management process stays relatively the same, but new tools and devices help teams produce a much improved final product.