Project Management History Essential and Effective Section

Question: Explain the history of Project Management. Answer: Introduction Project management is an essential and effective section of any kind of organization. By the help of project management concept and principle an organization could be able to get their desired outcomes or results (Rivard and Dupr, 2009). By the help of this paper a brief importance and fundamental aspects of project management principles can be observed. In this case various phases and examples of projects have been considered for getting a sound overview about the matter. Different researchers and observers have made comments over this particular matter and their opinions have been considered in this paper for getting good result.Critical Understandings of the Project ManagementAfter studying the article a brief summary could be observed project management and its evolution. After having the analysis it could be said project management has been changing in a continuous manner. Researchers have segmented the phases in four periods and developments can be found in various periods in a different ways. Five different responsibilities of project manager also have been driven. According to this principle project managers must have to focus on the planning phase of the process. After planning phase; project manager needs to organize and co-ordinate each and every activity in a significant manner(Kwak and Anbari, 2011). Left two segments are the control and command. According to these two principles project managers must have to make strong control over the situations and after doing this they need to command over the situation. Through this process a project can get its desired outcomes. Four periods have been considered on the basis of four parameters, those are before the phase of 1958, 1958 to 1979, 1980 to 1994 and post 1994. Each and every time frame signifies some beneficial aspects of the project management concepts. According to the researchers in each and every time phase evolved some new techniques and aspects of executing a project. In the article multiple examples also have been driven for analyzing the phases properly. Before the phase of 1958 concept of project management was developed and that time technology was not up to the mark but it was enough to reduce the time of project scheduling. After the invention of Gantt chart process of scheduling has been changed radically. Project managers could easily schedule their overall project activities through the Gantt chart and later it also helped to create the work breakdown structure. WBS is mainly used to structure overall activities. Three examples have been drawn in the article for analyzing the overall matter. At past human administration in the case of project process was mainly done on the basis of skills and talent. A project of 1857 T.D. Juhah showcases an extraordinary example of class and skills (Lock, n.d.). The rail bridge was made on the pacific and overall work was segregated on the basis or formal report. Project office was responsible for managing the communication a mong all the stakeholders of the project. A long five year was taken to make Hoover Dam with great excellence. Big six companies were appointed for accomplishing the project and they have done their job with good communication and skills. Lastly Manhattan project shows an example of managing huge manpower. RD section of this project got huge appreciation.Second period starts from 1958 and ends to 1979, this phase consisted of implementations of different managements science. Various technological advancement s were found in this session and those changed the dimension of project management. Xerox was implemented in the process and on the other hand minicomputers and microprocessors were developed. Through these technological tools project was found very easy to execute. CPM calculator was implemented in different government and private projects for enhancing the strength of the process. One of the famous examples of this is the Polaris project which refined the base of project manag ement. A special bureau was formed by US navy for sending missiles to submarines. Another famous example is Apollo project and it was organized by NASA. Management of NASA successfully scheduled overall activities of the project and in this case NASA used PERT calculator for managing all the operations. ARPANET also showcased some beneficial attributes of technology based project.1980 to 1994 can be termed as the third period of the project management process and this phase mainly focused on the human resource. In this phase IT development has made radical changes in the project management process and engineers were appointed for handling multitasking computers. Different projects are there which are witnessed of radical IT developments. Some of these projects are English-France project, Calgary Olympic etc. Multiple technological advancements have been showcased in these projects (Crespin-Mazet, Ingemansson Havenvid and Linn, 2015).Last phase is the present condition and it was sta rted from 1995. The phase showcases how a new and different environment can be created for a particular project. Like the earlier period this phase also showcases the development of IT sector. IT has changed drastically in this phase and in this case projects managers a separate system for handling all kinds of operations of the business. Y2K and Motorolas Iridium project was made by following this type of principles. Lesson Learnt and ConclusionThrough the overall discussion project management history can be judged in a significant manner. After having the overall analysis it could be said with the changing IT industry project management process has been changed. At past formal report and direct meeting was the only option to manage all the functionalities of the project, but now project managers can easily manage their five tasks by handling a single system. Negotiation and communication played a crucial role else management couldnt track the performance of the employees and staff s of the process (Burke and Barron, n.d.). At this present moment a single IT system can track the procurement process, resource and man power activities in a significant manner. On the other hand it could be said that value of projects have been somehow less at this present moment. At past skills and experts were given priority, but in this technological era human skills are not accepted widely. These things can be observed through this overall paper. References Burke, R. and Barron, S. (n.d.). Project management leadership.Chiu, Y. (2012). A history of medieval project management. Delft: Eburon.Crespin-Mazet, F., Ingemansson Havenvid, M. and Linn, . (2015). 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