Strategy A Project Management Historical Timeline Published on 19 October 2009 - Revised on While reviewing my latest copy of Project Manager Today – a UK-based PM magazine – I was reading their article entitled “A Profession is Born” which looks back on the 20-year history of the publication. Included in the article is a timeline of some key points in project management history – though with a very UK twist to it. I decided to put together a more all-inclusive timeline by grabbing some info from Wikipedia and whatever other sources I could find. The resulting timeline follows – I hope you find it as interesting as I did. If you have anything that should be added or revised – please let me know…I’m always interested in accuracy and completeness. Project Management Timeline 1910s 1910 – The Gantt Chart developed by Henry Laurence Gantt (1861–1919) 1950s 1954 – Bernard Shriever (US Air Force) coins the term Project Management 1956 - The Critical path method (CPM) invented by Du Pont employees 1956 – The American Association of Cost Engineers (now AACE International) formed 1958 – The Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) method invented and used on the Polaris project 1960s 1962 – DoD/NASA publish a description of the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) 1967 – The International Project Management Association (IPMA) founded in Europe 1969 – Project Management Institute (PMI) launched to promote project management profession 1970s 1973 – International Computers Limited (ICL) offer PERT on a mainframe computer 1974 -PROMPT method launched (later known as PRINCE2) 1975 – PROMPTII methodology created by Simpact Systems Ltd (source: PRINCE2 manual) 1975 – The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering by Fred Brooks published 1979 – Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency (CCTA – later known as Office of Government Commerce or OGC – UK) adopt PROMPT II 1980s 1980 – First ‘on screen’ bar chart on early PCs 1981 – UK Army adopts PROMPT method 1984 – The Goal by Eliyahu M. Goldratt published 1986 – Scrum was named as a project management style in the article The New New Product Development Game by Takeuchi and Nonaka 1987 – First Project Management Body of Knowledge Guide (PMBoK) published as a white paper by PMI 1989 – PRINCE method derived from PROMPTII is published by the UK Government agency CCTA and becomes the UK standard for all government information projects 1990s 1996 PRINCE2 published by CCTA (now OGC) as a generic product management methodology for all UK government projects. 1996 – First published edition of the PMBoK appears 1997 – Critical Chain by Eliyahu M. Goldratt published 2000s 2000 PMBoK second edition published 2001 Agile Alliance formed to promote “lightweight” software development projects 2004 PMBoK third edition published 2006 Total Cost Management Framework release by AACE 2008 PMBoK fourth edition published Rate this article: 5.0 Print Brad Egeland Brad Egeland is a Business Solution Designer and an Information Technology / Project Management consultant and author with over 25 years of software development, management and project management experience. He has successfully led project initiatives in Manufacturing, Government Contracting, Creative Design, Gaming and Hospitality, Retail Operations, Aviation and Airline, Pharmaceutical, Start-ups, Healthcare, Higher Education, Nonprofit, High-Tech, Engineering and general IT. Full biography Full biography Brad Egeland is a Business Solution Designer and an Information Technology / Project Management consultant and author with over 25 years of software development, management and project management experience. He has successfully led project initiatives in Manufacturing, Government Contracting, Creative Design, Gaming and Hospitality, Retail Operations, Aviation and Airline, Pharmaceutical, Start-ups, Healthcare, Higher Education, Nonprofit, High-Tech, Engineering and general IT. In addition to his accomplishments in IT development, resource and project management, he has also authored more than 6,000 expert advice and strategy articles and more than a dozen eBooks and videos on project management, business strategy, and information technology and best practices for his own website and for clients all around the world. Brad is highly regarded as one of the most prolific go-to authors on project management. x Contact author Google Plus Twitter Linked In
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