April 14 , 2008

 

Dear David,

In response to the two interesting letters in your April issue (Tom McCabe, "On the History of Modern Project Management," and Bob Youker, "On the Subject of the History of Project Management") I attach a 3 page article (view Page 1, Page 2, Page 3). I wrote that appeared in the Sept. 1987 issue of PMI's Project Management Journal. I refer there to articles by John Fondahl and Jim Snyder in the previous 2 issues of that publication, so if you can track those down I'm sure they would be of interest to your readers.

Tom's comments are on target, but I disagree a bit with him on why POLARIS was "three years ahead of schedule." As indicated in the attached article, in 1959 I was in charge of PERT at Aerojet-General for the solid rocket component of the POLARIS missile system. PERT got a lot of undeserved credit for that "ahead of schedule" success, as I explain in my article. I believe that the real reason for that success was Admiral "Red" Raborn, who as an inspired Project Manager got the many POLARIS contractors working together as an effective team. He was constantly visiting the many plants around the country, showing the flag, pressing the flesh, exhorting top managers and workers on the shop floor to make things happen on schedule and to spec. The Navy never did integrate our Aerojet-General PERT network plans with Lockheed's PERT network plans, although Lockheed  was the overall systems integrator for the missile system.

My old friend Bob Youker has mis-quoted another old friend, Peter Morris, when he says "Precedence Diagramming was developed in 1958 by METRA Consulting in Paris with MPM and at the same time in Germany.  (Morris page 42)" What Morris actually says (on page 41 of his 1994 book "The Management of Projects," is "....another development was occurring which at first was hardly noticed but since has proved of great significance in that most fundamental aspect of project management: scheduling. This was the development, largely by John W. Fondahl at Stanford University, of precedence diagramming.... The methodology was published in 1961...."  The French and German developments mentioned by Bob refer to the idea of "lags," which figure prominently in the precedence diagramming method. Morris says (page 41) "The idea of lags...was in fact probably first developed by B. Roy of the Metra Group in France in 1958.... Lags were also used in another European activity-on-node system developed in Germany in 1960 by Walter and Rainer Schleip:...RPS.... However, Fondahl appears not to have known of either the MPM or the RPS method."

Anyone interested in looking further into the origins of 'modern project management' can buy a used copy of my 1967 book (co-authored with Richard Villoria) "Network-Based Management Systems PERT/CPM", Wiley NY, from Amazon.com at
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0471032506/qid=1051757566/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/102-8515710-8948950?v=glance&s=books
for a few dollars. The book contains an appendix on Precedence Diagramming written mostly by J. David Craig, who also happens to be cited on page 41 of Morris's book as one of the principal authors of the IBM 1440 Project Control System. The 1967 book also contains a 5 page bibliography on network-based systems.

Best to all,
Russ Archibald
San Miguel de Allende, Mexico

---

On the Use of PMForum Case Studies

April 24 , 2008

 

Hello,

I'm the VP - Professional Development for the Northeast Indiana
chapter of PMI.

Our chapter offers a scholarship each year.  I would like to ask your permission for our site to point to your selection of case studies to be used by applicants.

http://www.pmforum.org/library/cases/index.htm

Our site: www.pmi-neic.org

Each applicant would select a case study, download one (or more) then write a 2 page analysis as their scholarship application.

They would not be used for any gain by the chapter and would only be used by prospective scholars for study and competition for funds.

Thank you for your consideration.

David Maynard, MBA, PMP
Fort Wayne, Indiana, USA
dave@maynard.com

---

Letter to the Editor

April 29 , 2008

 

I want to use this opportunity to in form you of the existence of "Society Of Project Management Technology Students (SOPMATS)" in the university. I would like you to officially recognise this organisation and help us as we learn and prepare to be project managers. We would like to get some information like, what kind of professional examinations can we partake even as students, how can we get readily available professional piece of advice that is readily around us.

SOPMATS is an organised body with executive members and aims lke every other organisation. From what I have seen, it seems like there is no recognised Project Management organisation in Nigeria, so we would like you to expose us to the world of Project Management. I would be looking forward to hearing from you and will readily give any information you require.

John Ndubuisi

Department of project management technology,
Federal University of Technology,
Owerri, Imo State, Nigeria.
ndumann@yahoo.com