Origins of Project Management
This article should have been titled "The Origins of Modern Project Scheduling Graphical Tools Used Today" - Paul
Today's knowledge workers increasingly function in groups, taking their specialized expertise from project to project
(whether within or across organizational boundaries). Coordinating such project groups is a challenge but not a new
one. Managers began directly addressing the coordination of large projects a century ago (actually much, much
longer!). For railroads, electric power stations and other sizable civil projects, they developed techniques that are
with us in evolved forms today.
Around the turn of the 20th century, managers of such projects faced pressure from proponents of scientific
management to organize in a centralized way and control not just what was done but the details of how and when it
was done. Frederick Taylor, Frank and Lillian Gilbreth and others advocated time-and-motion studies to determine
how to perform each component of each task - down to how to lay a brick. Yet despite the popularity of this trend,
its techniques found only limited application in the arena of large-scale construction.
Construction projects continued to depend primarily on the craft and engineering knowledge of individuals and
groups. Managers recognized that the complexity and localized specifics of projects, such as weather and soil
conditions, required discretion on the part of skilled workers over how they accomplished their pieces of the task.
Therefore, project engineers developed or adapted coordination techniques that gave the managers control over the
progress of the project but did not attempt to dictate to specialized experts how to do their work. MIT professor
Erwin Schell articulated this philosophy, telling students in the 1930's, "The work of the engineers in most
departments is not sufficiently routinized to allow process control. The most satisfactory policy appears to be that of
employing competent men and then holding them [responsible] for results in terms of the erection schedule, leaving
ways and means largely to their individual discretion."
Techniques for coordinating project workers evolved over the years. Gantt charts (developed by Henry Laurence
Gantt in the second decade of the 20th century) were used to visually display scheduled and actual progress in parts
of projects. Large construction efforts ranging from Hoover Dam (built from 1931 to 1935) to the interstate highway
network (started in 1956) relied on such graphic tools. Starting as early as the 1910s, the project system of working
spread from civil engineering to other disciplines, becoming the explicit unit of work in R&D departments and other
areas.
During the second half of the century, computerized network analysis enabled even more sophisticated versions of
coordination tools. The Critical Path Method (CPM) was developed in the late 1950s by DuPont and Remington Rand
Univac to coordinate complex plant maintenance projects. Booz-Allen Hamilton worked with the U.S. Navy to create
Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) charts and schedules as part of the Polaris submarine program.
The refinement of such tools continues today.
Although knowledge work seems far removed from massive building projects such as Hoover Dam, it is increasingly
organized along the lines of project management rather than conventional, hierarchical modes. We can learn an
important lesson from these earlier construction initiatives; they reinforce the notion that knowledge workers
(whether construction engineers or Web designers) can't be effectively micromanaged. Instead, project managers;
especially of large and complex jobs, benefit from tools that help them to manage the whole project but that leave
the details ow how work gets done under local control
This article from Knowledge Management magazine, August 2000, and written by JoAnne Yates, Sloan Distinguished
Professor of Management at MIT's Sloan School of Management. This column incorporates research by Benjamin
Pinney, a doctoral fellow in MIT's Industrial Performance Center.
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NOTE: Project management has been around for many centuries. Anytime projects (with a specific start and finish
and constraints by definition) were carried out, there were "aspects" of project management...even in the Seven
Wonders of the World!
This article does articulate when the "tools" of scheduling were introduced, but fails to address that project
management is made up of many facets, not just scheduling tools. Anyone who has ever really been involved in it
understand the many aspects required for successful project management. Again, it is very unfortunate that the
scheduling tools developed over the last century seem to be the focus of project management researchers, and thus
constitute their academic attempt to understand a practical discipline. It would have better to have titled this
article...The Origins of the Modern Project Scheduling Graphical Tools (Techniques) Used Today. - Paul
Note: The use of project scheduling makes up about 2% of the real activities in project management. Please note
that if you are of the mindset to think "scheduling" IS project management....think again, please. - Paul
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