The 1950s marked the beginning of the modern Project Management era. Two mathematical project-scheduling models were developed:
- The Program Evaluation and Review Technique or PERT, developed by Booz-Allen&Hamilton as part of the United States Navy’s (in conjunction with the Lockheed Corporation) Polaris missile submarine program. Pert is basically a method for analyzing the tasks involved for completing a given project, especially the time needed to complete each task, and identifying the minimum time needed to complete the total project ( [link] ).
- The Critical Path Method (CPM) developed in a joint venture by both DuPont Corporation and Remington Rand Corporation for managing plant maintenance projects. The critical path determines the float, or schedule flexibility, for each activity by calculating the earliest start date, earliest finish date, latest start date, and latest finish date for each activity. The critical path is generally the longest full path on the project. Any activity with a float time that equals zero is considered a critical path task. CPM can help you figure out how long your complex project will take to complete and which activities are critical; meaning they have to be done on time or else the whole project will take longer. These mathematical techniques quickly spread into many private enterprises.
Project management in its present form began to take root a few decades ago. In the early 1960s, industrial and business organizations began to understand the benefits of organizing work around projects. They understood the critical need to communicate and integrate work across multiple departments and professions.
The Project Management Institute (PMI) was founded in 1969 by five volunteers. Their initial goal was to establish an organization where members could share their experiences in project management and to discuss issues. Today, PMI is a non-profit project management professional association and the most widely recognized organization in terms of promoting project management best practices. PMI was formed to serve the interests of the project management industry. The premise of PMI is that the tools and techniques of project management are common even among the widespread application of projects from the software to the construction industry. PMI first began offering the PMP certification exam in 1984. Although it took a while for people to take notice, now more than 260,000 individuals around the world hold the PMP designation.
To help keep project management terms and concepts clear and consistent, PMI introduced the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) Guide in 1987. They updated it in 1996, 2000, 2004, and most recently in 2009 as the fourth edition. At present, there are more than 1 million copies of the PMBOK Guide in circulation. The highly regarded Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) have adopted it as their project management standard.
In 1999 PMI was accredited as an American National Standards Institute (ANSI) standards developer and also has the distinction of being the first organization to have its certification program attain International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 9001 recognition. In 2008, the organization reported more than 260,000 members in over 171 countries. PMI also has offices in Washington, D.C., and Beijing, China, as well as Regional Service Centers in Singapore, Brussels (Belgium) and New Delhi (India). Recently, an office was opened in Mumbai (India).