IT Project Management: A Historical Overview Blog Post

This blog post provides a comprehensive overview of the history of project management, tracing its evolution from prehistoric projects like the Great Pyramids of Giza and the Great Wall of China to the development of modern techniques. The post highlights key milestones such as the invention of the Gantt chart, the formation of the American Association of Cost Engineers, and the emergence of techniques like the Critical Path Technique, Work Breakdown Structure, Scrum, and Critical Chain Project Management. It examines the contributions of key figures like Henry Gantt and organizations in shaping project management practices. The blog emphasizes the significance of project management throughout history, illustrating how its principles have been applied to manage projects of varying scales and complexities. It also offers a concise timeline of these methods and the individuals who pioneered them, underscoring their relevance in contemporary project management.

History of Project Management
Introduction
Project Management is one of the most important tasks for a company, the work and use of
project management is to manage certain projects that are undertaken by any company or
organization. Project manager is the person who is in charge of managing the projects, the
management of project is important since the initialization stage of a project. There are several
methods which are used in the successful implementation of a project in a company. The most
important part is the project selection in which a company has to select a single project by
checking its application and the success by measuring it in various measurement criteria.
Another important part of the project management is the risk management which is used to
analyze the issues and the problems that are encountered in any project (Kerzner, 2018).
This blog will explain the history of the project management and various other methods that
were used to decide how the management of a certain project is done. The first time project
management was used by which company and who derived and formed the different project
management method will also be mentioned in this blog. This blog will describe how it was
formed and how useful it has been in the implementation of some of the world’s most
magnificent projects that were carried out in history.
Pre Historic Examples of Project Management
There are examples of certain projects and monuments in the world which were built way before
the modern method of project management and these projects describe how perfectly these
management methods were implemented in the making of these projects. Some of these
examples that will be mentioned here will be quite extraordinary and will determine how
important the project management was due to these prehistoric projects still standing still and
proving to be beneficial in every way (Seymour et al. 2014).
In the early 2570 BC, the Great Pyramids of Giza were built by the prehistoric humans. At that
time none of the scientific technology that we use today existed, but still, those hard-working and
intelligent people came up with the best ways to manage the project and implemented it
successfully. It is known that there were four different managers who took on the responsibility

to manage each of the four faces of the pyramid and the calculation and management that they
used to build them are still a hot topic of discussion for the scientists.
After a lot of years later, another project that we know today as the Great Wall of China was
implemented. It is said that this great wall was built to keep out the Mongolian invaders that
were attacking China. This was done somewhere around 208 BC and millions of people were
engaged in the making of this wonderful monument, it is said that were three categories of
workers used to make it. The three categories of the workers were: common people, soldiers, and
the criminals and due to its perfection, it is still known as one of the most successfully
implemented projects in history.
Development of the Modern Project Management Techniques
After the prehistoric projects discussed above, the modern times' project management techniques
were brought up years after The Great Wall of China. These project management methods are
still in use today and are said to have increased the efficiency and the success ratio of the projects
of modern times (Sunder M, 2016). Have a look at the timeline of these project management
methods below:
The invention of the Gantt chart
In 1917, the Gantt chart was developed by Henry Gantt. Henry Gantt is also known as the father
of the project management and he developed this project and named it after himself. This was a
very important discovery in the history of project management and was used in the building of
the Hoover Dam project in 1931.
American Association of Cost Engineers
The American Association of Cost Engineers also known as AACE International was formed in
1956. This society was established to lead the project management in various projects, the
society comprised of Project managers and other specialists in the field of project planning, cost
estimation, scheduling, and other related fields.
The Critical Path Technique
This techniques determines the length of a project and also determines the running length of any
project. This method was invented by Dupont Corporation in 1957 and this technique is deemed
to be one of the most successful techniques in project management.

The Work Breakdown Structure
The work breakdown structure is one of the most commonly used project management
technique, as the name suggests this technique is used to assign the different parts of the project
work to a team of different people. A hierarchy model is followed to implement this method, it
was discovered by the United States Defense Department and was published for use in 1962.
Scrum
Scrum was a software development model, the work of this model was to manage the small
teams that that worked independently and intensively on various parts of a project. This
management method was first mentioned in 1986 in a paper published in Harvard Business
Review and was specifically developed for software management.
Critical Chain Project Management
Critical project management used the algorithms and mathematical techniques to plan or carry
out a project and its management. This method was formed in 1997 by Eliyahu M. Goldratt and
is one of the best ways that is used in project management today.
Conclusion
This Blog mainly focuses on the history of project management. Since the beginning of the
developments and construction done by humans, project management has been an integral part of
it. From the pyramids built by the pharaohs to the Great Wall of China and also the modern day
projects that are undergoing in various countries, the project management has been done in all
levels. This blog mentions the timeline of these methods and also the people who discovered or
invented them and the use of these methods in present times.

References
Kerzner, H., (2018). Project management best practices: Achieving global excellence. John Wiley
& Sons.
Sunder M, V., (2016). Lean Six Sigma project management–a stakeholder management
perspective. The TQM Journal, 28(1), pp.132-150.
Seymour, T., & Hussein, S. (2014). The history of project management. International Journal of
Management & Information Systems (Online), 18(4), 233.
Comments (100 words each)
 This blog focuses only on the main project management techniques that are used today.
However, there is an even greater timeline of all the project management techniques that
were discovered in history. Although, it is understandable that the writer had to
summarize these methods in a short detail and so the methods that were chosen to be
mentioned in this blogs are the most important ones that are used in the project
management activities all around the world. The activities and methods mentioned here
are the most definitely included methods that can be summarized in such a short word
limit.
 The best part about this blog is that it gives the most useful details about the history of
project management. The introduction part first explains about the project management
and then the blog further goes down and focuses on the timeline of the historical events
that involve the formation of the various methods and the associations that were involved
in its formation. The conclusion summarizes the entire blog in very few words without
giving the main points of the blog and at the same time explaining the aim of the blog.
 According to me the older methods discussed in the blog do not come under the history
of project management. These formation toll place around the early BC and there is no
explained way that can describe that project management techniques were used in it.
Although the results of the successful and the unbelievable delivery of these projects with
perfect dimensions and mathematically arranged structure make me think otherwise. It is

unbelievable how these early people managed such large projects with such accuracy and
perfection that is impossible without modern machinery and science. The modern
approaches mentioned after that were the result of the science, technology and the
advanced study that we have today.