Project management: history and evolution

Projects managementAs we know it today, it began to stretch its branches only a few decades ago, yet it was riding around civilization since the beginning of history.

With a goal of maximum productivity with minimal involvement, and turning imagination into realism, the human need for an optimal management system that can unleash the efficiency of the workforce to produce a product, which is predetermined and objectified, was outlining a management system within the growth of human perception although its evolution.

This current of development in their respective trajectory had also marked their course from their origin, and the events of their travels were observed and recorded on the pages of history.

As we turn these pages, today we are witnessing a simple effort to illustrate and analyze tasks through simple bar charts, seeds grown yesterday, and in a short period of time, it had grown into a gigantic tree of the management industry. projects we are witnessing today.

“Henry Gantt” It is considered the ancestor of project management, since its planning and organizing methods with the use of “bar graphs” as a project management tool recognize it as the most important precursor of the contemporary project management practices employed. currently.

However, the civilization was practicing an anonymous management system for the fulfillment of the tasks performed by them since the beginning of civilization; as today we can witness the pyramids, Roman structures, etc. as one of the most exceptional achievements the human workforce has ever achieved.

Considering these massive project missions without a proper management scheme would be an unfair platform to write about today for our ancestors. The concept of project management was in the heart of our civilization from the beginning, but its name is coined and the structure is manufactured by our modern world.

As a discipline, project management has evolved from numerous diverse fields, including engineering, construction, military projects, etc. If we have to mark the identification date for this management system, then we must start not before the industrial revolution, as this revolution sprouted a complex need for management and organizational interaction. The need for budget management, use of the workforce, scaling of supply and demand, requires the development of a management system that was methodological and goal-oriented.

Frederick Taylor, who introduced a scientific approach to understanding productivity measurement through performance leveling, led it as the father of scientific approaches in organizational management systems.

Additionally, his associate Henry Gantt’s use of the bar chart as a measurement process for planning and control recognized him as the father of project management tools.

But the 1950s were marked as a date for the beginning of modern project management; As before, the projects of the 1950s were managed solely with the popular use of Gantt charts and informal tools and statistics.

In addition, the immediate launch of the Polaris submarine missile project to meet the need for the missile gap with Russia; The US Army systematized a “Program Evaluation and Review Technique” or PERT devised by Willard Fazar and the use of the “Critical Path Method” (CPM), a mathematical technique for managing complex projects, drives project management systems with advances in scientific approaches.

In 1969, the Project Management Institute (PMI) was formed to professionalize and modernize by formalizing project management tools and techniques.

Additionally, today with rapid technological advancement, thriving IT industries, and globalization, project management solutions are in demand around the world as a critical force for completing projects within defined scope, time, and cost constraints.

Administration tasks, where few people used to manage and memorize before; they now require advanced systems and methodological approaches for organizational decision making and planning implementation.

Today, ultramodern project management systems deliver innovative solutions and their management process has the latest tools and techniques, systems and schemes with scientific evidence and statistical explanations.

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