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. That was how the project management really took off.
In late 19th century, due to the rising complexities of the business world, it evolved more effectively from management principles. Large-scale government projects played a big role in major decision making. They were called as management decisions. Big projects involved thousands of workers, huge quantity of materials and bulk quantity of machinery and equipment.
In the early 20th century, business organizations sought to maximize the results of their combined labor, material and equipment. During this period, one man, Mr. Frederick Taylor, found through his analysis of employee work patterns and behavior that improving the methods of production would yield significantly higher output. Taylor's analysis of employees' use of time and the motions required for a particular job resulted in better production methods which reduced labor and material costs. Through this analysis, now referred to as a time and motion study, business found what they needed to maximize productivity and lower production costs. Because of his achievement, Taylor has been given the honorary title as "the father of scientific management."
Innovator of the charts which bear his name, Henry Gantt studied the order of work operations in great detail. His studies of the progress made on large progress helped him introduce the charts in the 1920s. The chart helped by allowing workers to see the scheduled times and the dependencies for each task. Gantt charts are still in use today.
Evolution of management into a distinctive business study dates back to the period of Taylor Gantt and many others. They revolutionized this concept into a study and discipline subject. Later came the different topics such as marketing approaches, industrial psychology, and human relations that became the backbone of business management. PERT charts and Critical Paths Methods were introduced in the mid 20's. After understanding the benefits of this subject, military and many other organizations started to adopt these techniques and they continue to apply them to this day.
Project management today has a different shape than at the onset. It now views a business as a human organism. Therefore, it implies that in order for a business to survive and prosper, all of its functional parts should work in concert toward specific goals, or projects. In the following decades, it began to evolve into modern forms which are prevailing now all over the world. The general concept is a project is managed by a project manager who has overarching responsibility for its accomplishment. The project manager assembles the necessary team. He organizes and co-ordinates the whole show to get optimal results in terms of productivity and profits and, ultimately, deliver the project to completion - on time and on budget.
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