On the History of Modern Project Management
March 2, 2008
The article titled "A Short History of Modern Project Management"
By Alan Stretton is in error.
1.) PERT stands for Program Evaluation and Review Technique; not Project.
2.) PERT was first employed on the Polaris Missile Program in the mid - 1950s and the nuclear submarine missile system was successfully deployed in 1960, three years ahead of schedule. Because of its success, this is probably the reason that PERT became widely used after Polaris.
3.) Wikipedia isn’t always right, but this time they’re spot on.
The 1950s marked the beginning of the modern project management era. Again, in the United States, prior to the 1950s, projects were managed on an ad hoc basis using mostly Gantt Charts, and informal techniques and tools. At that time, two mathematical project scheduling models were developed: (1) 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 [2]; and later (2) the "Critical Path Method" (CPM) developed in a joint venture by both DuPont Corporation and Remington Rand Corporation for managing plant maintenance projects. These mathematical techniques quickly spread into many private enterprises.
4.) Thus the science (math) is finally wed to the art, making Polaris and its use of PERT, the origins of Modern Project Management.
Thought you should know. . . .
Kind regards,
Tom McCabe
Connecticut, USA
References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_management#History_of_project_management
http://www.boozallen.com/about/history/history_5
On the Subject of the History of Project Management
March 5 , 2008
Dear David,
Your history on PM Forum is missing several pieces. Precedence Diagramming was developed in 1958 by METRA Consulting in Paris with MPM and at the same time in Germany. (Morris page 42) I have a different name for the German firm than Peter has (BMB or something like that.) You also totally missed Planalog.
One of the really critical dates was 1967 when Peter Drucker at a meeting of Diebold Research (Diebold was an early computer consultant) said," They are a shift from FUNCTIONS as the center of organizations to TASKS as the center of organizations." This means projects and has resulted in today's world. Also see my paper in PMJ 1971 reprinted in PMI's Decade of Project Management on New Directions in Project Management.
Best Regards
Bob Youker
World Bank, retired
Virginia, USA
On the Subject of the March Editorial –
New Frontiers for Project Management: Nanotechnology
March 5 , 2008
Hello Mr. David:
I'm Getachew Teklemariam Alemu, an Infrastructure Projects Expert, from the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development of Ethiopia.
I have gone through this month's PM forum editorial that you have written with the title" New Frontiers for Project Management, Nanotechnology". It is really an inspirational, forward looking and positive piece of article explaining the would be contribution of Nanotech to the betterment of life in the next decades.
As being a citizen of one of the least developed countries of the world, Ethiopia, I have a great hope that Nano will help us to secure our food self-sufficiency, be able to efficiently use our mineral resources, ensure better health and sanitation coverage, and use our water resources efficiently. In doing so, it would help us ensureEthiopia's Renaissance, which is highlighted upon the start of our unique Millennium that has started on Sept 1, 2007 (Sept. 1, 2000 Ethiopian Calendar). Yet, to tap that potential, we have to create strong PM professionals. Despite there is no PM training in our country, I hope it would resume soon.
Congra-Nano,.................Congra-Ethiopia,................Congra-PM Forum, inc.
Getachew Alemu
Addis Abbaba, Ethiopia
On the Subject of Research on IT Project Failures
March 13, 2008
Dear David,
In response to the two letters to the editor of the March edition of PM World Today:
I think they (and perhaps others of your readers) might be interested in the attached presentation that Darci Prado and I made at the 7th Annual International Workshop in Project and Programme Management at ESC-Lille School of Business Management in France last summer. Readers can see the full report (in both Brazilian Portuguese and English) at www.maturityresearch.com.
The ongoing research project in Brazil focuses on PM maturity within organizations, not for the total organization but rather within specific major categories of projects within organizations. This first phase is directed to the category of IT projects, and shows a definite correlation between maturity and project success (or failure) as noted in the presentation,
Russ
Russell D. Archibald, PhD (Hon), MSc, PMP, Fellow PMI and APM/IPMA
Consultant and Educator in Project Management
http://www.russarchibald.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/russarchibald
On the Subject of PM at NASA
March 19, 2008
Dear David,
Thanks for your great report on the Tokyo Symposium in your March issue, and especially on Ed Hoffman's keynote speech. Your readers can see what Ed's NASA Academy of Program, Project and Engineering Leadership does by going to http://appel.nasa.gov/. I think they will be impressed with what is going on their, and it might give some readers some useful ideas about how to spread knowledge and experience on project management within their parts of the project management world.
Also, if anyone Googles "NASA Project Management" they will find a wealth of information (710,000 hits!) about how NASA plans, executes, and manages their high-technology aerospace projects.
Russ Archibald
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