History of Project Management - Special Academic Support

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According to Marion (2002), project management is an activity that is concerned with organization and its processes. It is more commonly associated with applications in computer engineering and information technology. The process of project management entails the management of resources and teams that are involved in the project this assists the project managers to utilize the resources and personnel as required which finally leads to achievement of the project goals within the scheduled financial constraints (Marion 2002).

Project management is believed to have developed a few decades ago. It is believed to have been developed in the early 1960s and it is normally associated with the earlier projects such as the construction of ancient Egyptians pyramids that are believed to have been constructed 4500 years ago, construction of numerous transcontinental railways during the 19^th century, construction of permanent buildings of different sizes that were complex and meant for the mankind occupancy. Being an important field project management developed from several fields of application. It is believed that the two founders of project management in the United States were Henry Gantt who is believed to be the founder of planning and control methods and also the founder of the bar chart as one of the key project management tool (Spinner 1997).

According to Scott (2005), Gantt carried out a lot of studies which had great details on the order of operations in work place. Gantt made a thorough analysis of his studies from which he established that gantt charts are useful tools that can be used to complete any form of project work when combined with task bars and milestones markers that outlines the series and period which project tasks can be accomplished. Scott further argues that Gantt charts diagrams after their development became more powerful and critical tools for the managers which have been in use for the past years until update in early 1990s where new developments have been added that depict existing dependencies between the tasks (Scott 2005).

According to Spinner Henri Fayol is believed to be the former founder of the six management functions that form the background knowledge in the field of project management. In addition Spinner further notes that Henri Fayol used his knowledge to apply his scientific reasoning to project tasks such as steel mills, shoveling sand, lifting and moving parts from which he analyzed that production could be improved through employee hard work and employees working for a longer period of time. Furthermore Grant, Fayol, Taylor and others lead to the evolution of management business functions that recognized project management as an important discipline in development of projects (Spinner 1997).

According to George (1997), Gantt and Fayol were believed to have been the first to use the earlier theories of scientific management of Frederick Winslow Taylors which were useful in the development of project management industry. These theories were more significant to Grant especially during his studies on the efficient management of the Navy ship building. George argues that the work of Gantt was the originator of numerous modern projects and the modern project management tools among them Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) which assists managers to effectively allocate resources to the projects (George 197). After these developments many businesses and organizations began to utilize the knowledge project management in their projects which was done by effective organization of work through critical communication by managers to the team members as well as integration of work across all the multiple departments in the organization. Prior before the development of these events in 18^th century two elements scope and cost control were developed which were used by managers to achieve deadlines since by that time management lacked effective measurement and the control processes were not effective at that time(Scott 2005).

The year 1950s marked a new start for further developments to the modern project management discipline. In the United States before the year 1950s all the projects were managed in a disorderly manner where mostly Gantt charts and other techniques and tools of project management were used. During this time the first project of science addition was initiated by Kelley and Walker that marked the path which led to the development of Critical Path Method (CPM).The critical path method was developed through a joint venture by two famous corporations which were DuPont Corporation and Remington Rand Corporation. The development of critical path method marked a new beginning in the field of project management since it became a useful tool for project managers used for administration and preservation of plant projects (George 1997).

George (1997) argues that the tools and techniques established quickly became useful among the industries as well as for business managers since it provided new ways of managing the projects as the tools were used as a means for managing high organization growth in the rapidly varying competitive world. After the world war second the projects became so complex due to the shrinking war which caused the war-time labour supply to increase which caused high demanded for new organizational structures. More complex network diagrams were introduced with the view of enabling managers to easily control the massive engineered and extreme complex projects such military weapon systems which normally have a greater number of tasks and interactions (George 1997).

Furthermore during the year 1956, some project management founders decided to form an association called American Association of Cost Engineers now called AACE international. AACE since its establishment has continued with its pioneering work to ensure further developments in the field of project management update when recently in 2006 it developed the first integrated process which help managers in the development of projects since managers use it as a tool for portfolio evaluation, program management overall referred to as Total Cost Management Framework this makes the process of project development easier and effective (Marion 2002).

The approval meeting that approved for funding of this project was done in Newark Delaware on 7th of May 1957.After the establishment of the Critical Path Method in 1969, Dr Martin Bames of the United States developed the first iron triangle of time, cost and output after which he also developed course of Time and Money that was used in contract control. During this period one more mathematical project was developed which was Program Evaluation and Review Technique or sometimes called PERT that was developed by Lockheed Corporation Polaris missile which by that time it was a submarine a program developed in the united states as part of the Navy ship that was being constructed. These techniques quickly became useful among the many private enterprises that used them to organize their daily tasks and helped them manage work teams easily (George 1997). Many developments occurred in project management after these events (George 1997).

According to Spinner the year 1969, marked another development in the field of project management. The Project Management Institute (PMI) was established which had its focus to ensure further developments in the field of project management industry. In addition to this in the year 1981, the PMI board developed a guide which was known as A Guide to Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK), which contains the principles and procedures governing the practice of project management. The body of knowledge was established later which contained the nine key areas of project management knowledge and project activity processes of developing a project (Scott 2005).

After these developments project management has become part of business and a tool through which functional parts of an organization are brought together with an aim of achieving specific goals or projects. This approach has become so important in the modern projects with many businesses evolving with different models but sharing a common underlying structure which mostly applies to larger businesses. The project management has became useful to project managers since they can easily put together all the work teams and at the same time ensure proper integration and communication of the work horizontally across the different departments (Dennis 2007).

References

Marion E. Haynes (2002), Project Management: Practical tolls for success; Published by Cengage Learning, 3rd edition.

George J. Ritz (1994), Total Construction Project Management; Published by McGraw-Hill Professional.

Dennis Lock (2007), Project Management; Published by Gower Publishing, Ltd.

Scott Berkun (2005), The art of project management; Published by OReilly.

Spinner. M. (1997), Project management: principles and practices; Published by Prentice Hall, 1997.

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