History of Project Management
Although the major concepts have been around since the late nineteenth century, project management started becoming popular and took shape into its modern form only a few decades ago. Organizations started modeling work around projects when they realized the need for communication among employees and integration of work across departments.
Demand for Project Management
In the second half of the nineteenth century, the business world was starting to become complex. In 1860, the United States had its first major governmental project for the transcontinental railroad [1]. This project demanded the organization of thousands of workers for labor and management of a huge amount of raw material.
Soon after that in the early twentieth century Frederick Taylor studied work and analyzed how labor can be improved by focusing on the elementary parts. He paid emphasis on increasing worker efficiency as compared to the standard practice of demanding harder and longer working hours. Around the same time as Taylor, Henry Gantt studied the order of operations. He introduced the concept of Gantt charts which show the sequence and duration of tasks that constitute a process. This was a great success among managers.
The contribution of these two great scientists along with their peers made project management an integral part of the business that requires a great detail of planning and study. Closer to the Second World War, aspects such as marketing, human relations and industrial psychology became a part of project management.
During the World War II, complex military projects arose which demanded better organizational strategies for labor and raw materials. During this time, PERT charts and analysis of critical method became popular since they gave managers better control over complex projects. In no time these techniques spread across the industry and business leaders implemented them in an effort to get some leverage in the growing market.
Soon after that in the early twentieth century Frederick Taylor studied work and analyzed how labor can be improved by focusing on the elementary parts. He paid emphasis on increasing worker efficiency as compared to the standard practice of demanding harder and longer working hours. Around the same time as Taylor, Henry Gantt studied the order of operations. He introduced the concept of Gantt charts which show the sequence and duration of tasks that constitute a process. This was a great success among managers.
The contribution of these two great scientists along with their peers made project management an integral part of the business that requires a great detail of planning and study. Closer to the Second World War, aspects such as marketing, human relations and industrial psychology became a part of project management.
During the World War II, complex military projects arose which demanded better organizational strategies for labor and raw materials. During this time, PERT charts and analysis of critical method became popular since they gave managers better control over complex projects. In no time these techniques spread across the industry and business leaders implemented them in an effort to get some leverage in the growing market.
Present Times
In today’s time, business is viewed as a human body that needs all functional areas to be working towards specific goals in order to ensure the proper running of the business [1]. This idea began to take shape in the 1960s. Although there are various business models that fall under project management, they all share a common structure where the project is managed by a project manager, who puts together a team and assigns roles to everyone.
More recently, in the past ten years, there are two distinct approaches to project management that have evolved, namely bottom up planning and top down planning. Bottom up planning is characterized by smaller and simpler projects with short project cycles. There is more emphasis on team involvement in the decision making. Agile project management is another name for this trend and it includes various approaches such as Scrum, Crystal, Extreme Programming, Unified Process, etc. On the other hand, top down planning is based more on enterprise wide decision making about the general portfolio of projects the corporation should have, and data mining technologies.
More recently, in the past ten years, there are two distinct approaches to project management that have evolved, namely bottom up planning and top down planning. Bottom up planning is characterized by smaller and simpler projects with short project cycles. There is more emphasis on team involvement in the decision making. Agile project management is another name for this trend and it includes various approaches such as Scrum, Crystal, Extreme Programming, Unified Process, etc. On the other hand, top down planning is based more on enterprise wide decision making about the general portfolio of projects the corporation should have, and data mining technologies.
The Project Management Office (PMO)
The PMO stands for the Project Management Office which can be responsible for providing project management support or the actual execution of the project depending upon the needs of the organization. Some of the common functions include
The PMO should not be confused with the Project Manager. The project manager is responsible for specific project deliverables, schedule, cost, etc of the project whereas the PMO manages the wide scope of the project such as project management methodologies, standards, overall risk and integrating projects on the enterprise level. In terms of resources, the project manager is responsible for assigning resources on their individual project whereas the PMO optimizes sharing of resources across projects.
- Making recommendations about both the selection of future projects and the ones at hand.
- Being an integral member of the planning phase.
- Terminating projects when not in lieu with corporate policy.
- Assigning resources among various projects.
- Providing training opportunities for employees.
- Monitoring projects for status updates and to ensure compliance with policies.
- Coordinating the communication across various departments or various projects.
The PMO should not be confused with the Project Manager. The project manager is responsible for specific project deliverables, schedule, cost, etc of the project whereas the PMO manages the wide scope of the project such as project management methodologies, standards, overall risk and integrating projects on the enterprise level. In terms of resources, the project manager is responsible for assigning resources on their individual project whereas the PMO optimizes sharing of resources across projects.