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When did Project Management come about?

Being a history buff has always led me to wonder about how things got started.  Being in the Project Management field has driven me to inquire from time to time about just what are the origins of Project Management, the simple questions, when and why? In searching I came across an interesting article on www.1888articles.com written by Carol Meyer that I would like to share with you.

Could the Crusades have been launched and the soldiers armed and fed without effective project management? Could the Great Wall have been built with ingenious natural materials and a team of millions over a span of a thousand years without project management? It is possible to say that the concept pf project management has been around since the beginning of history. It has enabled leaders to plan bold and massive projects and manage funding, materials and labor within a designated time frame. What leaders from the distant past managed to accomplish is amazing and without the project management tools available today.

During the industrial revolution business and industry grew and expanded rapidly across continents. With the coming of automation, everything was done on a larger scale. The ability to manage projects in the way of budgets, supplies and labor at various or secondary locations was crucial and motivated the investigation of new ideas to streamline methods.

The Father of Scientific Management

In the early 1900’s a pioneering scientist named Frederick Taylor tested his theories on worker productivity by creating a methodology for the measuring and performance of certain tasks by workers in steel mills. He was interested in discovering new and better ways for workers to perform a job rather that by simply insisting that they work harder and longer. Taylor died in Philadelphia and the inscription on his tomb stone assures his place in history: "the father of scientific management."

Taylor’s friend, Henry Gantt was the first to design charts and diagrams to document and measure the processes involved in Navy ship building during WWI. By charting and analyzing each step in the ship building process he was able to see the big picture and extract information about the relationships between functions. The Gantt chart became an important tool for project management and has been used for the last 100 years.

Another Milestone

In the 1950’s when the government discovered that the Russians were developing missile technology it became crucial that the “missile gap” be filled. Since the safety of the nation was at stake, the U.S. Navy wanted to build a system of their own immediately. To manage the building program Willard Fazar’s PERT (Program Evaluation and Review Technique) was used. PERT uses critical path methodology to control projects that involve massive tasks and logistics. PERT is still the standard for all Navy projects today.

So, maybe Project Managers are not really an innovation of the modern time! Can you imagine being the Project Manager for the Crusades? What about being the Project Manager for the D-Day Invasion of Europe in World War II!  Talk about “Deliverables”!

Coming in 2007: the VR internet

In his now-classic 1981 short story True Names, author Vernor Vinge imagined a worlldwide virtual reality network in which users could assume alter egos and manipulate data with techniques similar to wizardry and magic. Many computer users, particularly gamers, embraced those concepts wholeheartedly, as attested to by the success of Second Life and other online environments (including World of Warcraft and similar MMORPGs). Now a non-profit group is building a new type of internet specifically for VR games and applications:

Neuronet, which is separate from the Internet, "will evolve into the world's first public network capable of meeting the data transmission requirements of emerging cinematic and immersive virtual-reality technologies," according to a Wednesday announcement from the Vancouver-based International Association of Virtual Reality Technologies.

The first-generation Neuronet is scheduled to go live in 2007, the group said. Consumer applications are expected as early as 2009.

Virtual reality generally refers to environments with visual and audio information that makes a person feel immersed in a computer-generated realm. The growth of environments such as Second Life has spotlighted such efforts, and IBM believes that virtual worlds will open new doors to e-commerce as well.

The group promises that Neuronet will have high-speed communication, a key constraint for virtual reality, which requires transmission of large quantities of graphics and other data, as well as fast responses to give users a better illusion of realism.

Although the full impact is still years off, it's not much of a stretch to imagine the impact of such a VR network on project management and collaboration among remote team members. Online meetings and webinars, once a novelty, are now a staple in the business world. In 10 years, will it be commonplace for project teams to collaborate in simulated meeting rooms, solving problems by manipulating shared data models in 3D? IBM's endorsement of Second Life, and now Neuronet, is an indication that it may be.

All I really need to know I learned...

...not in Kindergarten, but from being a Project Manager. Lessons from Project Management: 101 ways to organize your life.

Wikis aid project management

Qualcomm has found wikis to be useful for managing projects - and project managers:

The San Diego-based wireless communications company set up the MediaWiki open-source software in January 2005, essentially for free, Fjeldheim says. “We didn’t pay anything for the software,” he says. “I had an I.T. engineer and an intern set it up.”

But now, any of Qualcomm’s 9,300 employees--not just I.T.--can set up their own wiki Web page to communicate with other team members. And Fjeldheim says it’s taken off like a rocket: The wiki server now handles 400,000 hits per month, making it the most-used intranet tool at Qualcomm.

Most of the hundreds of wikis, which allow multiple users to post and edit text or documents, are being used by project management teams to keep everybody on the same page. They’re also being used for stuff that’s not strictly business, like pulling together intracompany softball teams. “It’s better than e-mail, because there’s a history there,” Fjeldheim says. “It’s organized in a way that lets people readily find out what’s going on with a project. It’s been a terrific forum.”

We're expecting to see many articles in this vein in the coming months as more companies start experimenting with wikis, blogs and other collaborative tools for sharing project knowledge. More background on wikis here.

Follow the IT money in 2006

The Top 10 IT projects of 2006, according to Baseline Magazine, include CRM, Collaboration, Supply Chain Management, and Business Analytics, among others. Plan accordingly.

Techless Project Managers

Are Technical Project managers becoming obsolete? Kim Nash of Baseline's IT Project Management Hub reviews the results of a recent survey of 168 Project Managers by Western Carolina University and is suprised to find that nearly half (49%) do not possess specific technical skills for the projects they manage:

Rather than knowing how SAP enterprise software works, they can negotiate with SAP contractors. Rather than knowing how Microsoft’s customer relationship management application gets configured for the Windows 2000 Server operating system versus Windows Server 2003, they can resolve conflicts between disagreeing parties.

These weren’t lightweights. Half of the respondents said they held an official Project Management Professional designation (having taken and passed certification exams), and 72% had more than six years of PM experience.

I guess it isn’t so surprising; a person doesn’t have to be able to write code to know when software is or isn’t working to help a company reach a goal. (Likewise--and as if you didn’t already know--a business journalist doesn’t have to run a company to know when one is worth writing about.)

But still, it’s a statistical snippet that brings home how some key parts of the information-technology profession are moving further away from, well, technology. That’s risky, if you ask me. Technology initiatives can go wrong for many reasons, but understanding what products can and can’t do helps mitigate the risks.

This survey is consistent with an overall trend away from traditional skill-focused IT roles. Organizations are increasingly seeking hybrid professionals who understand the uses of a specific technology and its value to the business, as well as the nuts and bolts of how it's implemented. In many cases, the former carries greater weight than the latter.

The top three IT gigs

An article in CIO Magazine asserts that "the internal IT staff is back". But it also emphasizes that the game has changed:

In sum, the IT workforce is more important to business than ever before. For CIOs, it can become a full-time job to define the new business-facing IT roles, find the right candidates and use their skills in the right way. Three roles in particular have emerged as critical: the project manager, the relationship manager and the business analyst. Experienced candidates in these areas are inordinately hard to find. And some roles, like that of the relationship manager, are hard to define. And there are other difficulties: determining how to compensate these new specialists in a shifting job market, training and deploying them, and—once you've figured all that out—keeping your top talent on board. But CIOs must confront and conquer these challenges if they are to meet the increasing IT demands of today's business environment.

We've previously noted this trend here, here and here. IT professionals who previously could focus exclusively on honing their technical skills are now being asked to morph into more business-facing roles. For some, it's an opportunity to broaden their career path; for others it leads to the conclusion that their path forward is increasingly constrained and marginalized.

But the notion that IT professionals should have to have some understanding of how business operates shouldn't be revolutionary. As one commenter points out, "IT 'is the business' " and that has never stopped being true. In the first decades of the industry, it seemed enough to have people who could figure out how to implement a myriad of new technologies. In the current environment, companies are looking for people who understand how those technologies support the business. On the whole, not an unreasonable expectation. But it definitely ups the ante for IT professionals.

Needed: IT skills plus business knowledge

Amidst IT worker angst about job prospects, more indications of a looming talent shortage in the IT industry:

U.S. employers are scrambling to fill more skilled positions in project management, systems integration and business analysis. The ability to apply technology to business is crucial. “There’s a strong need for the coupling of basic information-technology skills with business knowledge,” said Phil Zweig, vice president of information systems at Northwestern Mutual.

More background here and here.

The state of project management maturity

A survey done last year by PriceWaterhouseCoopers looks at the state of project management maturity within companies and whether it can be correlated with higher levels of project performance. A summary of the study is available for download.

(Hat tip: Tom)

IT's "midlife crisis" an opportunity for consultants

Information Week reports that the IT industry is entering a "midlife crisis". It draws that conclusion from a recent Forrester survey of 53 IT executives. Of the companies who responded, some 28% reported plans to downsize IT in the next two years. But while this is gloomy news for full-time IT workers, it represents a shift towards a greater reliance on outside contractors. Among the relevant indicators:

• Staff-related spending alone will grow 6% in 2005
• 36% expect to increase IT outsourcing
• 25% report that 55% of staffing needs are outsourced
• One in five report that 25-55% of staff is outsourced
• 25% anticipate a shortage of skills within the next two years

Which IT skills are expected to be in the highest demand? Business Analysts, Strategists and Project/Program Managers. Are these jobs going offshore? Not according to a recent McKinsey report, that emphasizes that far fewer outsourced IT jobs are going offshore than is generally perceived.

Additionally, the data indicates a looming shortage of fresh talent. Last year only 1.4% of incoming college freshmen picked computer science as their major, down from 3.7% five years ago. All of which reinforces the trend towards a strong demand for contract IT workers in the coming years.