RMT 556 – PROJECT AND
ORGANISATIONAL MANAGEMENT
The History of Project
Management
Introduction
• Ancient times
Egyptian Pyramids
Great Wall of China
• Henry Gantt
Father of modern day project planning and
control
• 1950's
Genesis of modern day project management
Military / aerospace projects in UK & US
Gantt Charts - 1900's
• WW1 - Henry Gantt
• Visual aid for planning and controlling ship
building projects, Hoover Dam and highway
projects
• Significantly reduced the time for building a ship
• Components
Time scale
Activities
Scheduling of activities (horizontal bar)
Work done (2nd horizontal bar)
Time to-date
• Stood the test of time!
Project Management 1950's - 1960's
• Nearly all modern day project management
techniques were developed in this period
• Key achievements:
PERT & CPM
Earned value
WBS
• 1969
PMI formed
1st formal institute for project management
As of 2008, has 420,000 members in 250
chapters in 70 countries
Network diagrams
• Address
Activity time
Activity logic
• The logical relationship requires a model - CPM / PERT
• Gantt chart was lacking for more complex projects
• In 1950's:
Project cost overrun
Project time overrun
Optimistic scheduling?
• US Navy & DuPont/Remington developed PERT and
CPM
CPM
• Main difference between CPM and PERT was the
manner in which they addressed activity time durations
• Time estimates depended on previous projects
• CPM = deterministic approach
-suits a project where time durations can be accurately
predicted
-construction project
• PERT = probalistic approach
-time durations may vary
-research project
• CPM = CPA
• Set up to address "time/cost trade off" dilemma
Activity-on-Arrow / Activity-on-Node
• AOA
Benefits
indicates preceding and succeeding activities
• AON
Benefits
Offers:
Start to Start
Start to Finish
Finish to finish
Lag
Offers a professional presentation
History of Project Management
• Modern project management began with the
Manhattan Project, which the U.S. military led
to develop the atomic bomb
• In 1917 Henry Gantt developed the Gantt
chart as a tool for scheduling work in job
shops
• In 1958, the Navy developed PERT charts
• In the 1970s, the military began using project
management software, as did the construction
industry
• By the 1990s, virtually every industry was
using some form of project management
The Project Management Profession
• A 1996 Fortune article called project management
the “number one career choice”
• Other authors like Tom Peters and Thomas
Stewart stress that projects are what add value to
organizations
• Professional societies like the Project
Management Institute have grown tremendously
• By 2013, it is estimated that a shortage of 6
million skilled project professionals is expected in
the Persian Gulf and China Sea regions alone
• Currently there are 20 million people participating
in projects worldwide, but just one million have
professionally recognized formal training on how
to best execute those projects
Code of Ethics
• PMI developed a project management
code of ethics that all PMPs must agree to
abide by
• Conducting work in an ethical manner
helps the profession earn confidence
• Ethics are on the web at
www.pmi.org/certification/code.htm