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20. PMI Infinity

In 2024 the PMI released PMI Infinity 2.0 which used the latest AI technology to answer questions using reasoning, backed up by its body of knowledge and not just parroting back from the information contained within its database.

19. AI Essentials for Project Professionals

In 2023 the PMI started on its journey to guide Project Professionals on their journey to utilizing AI to assist in Project Management

18. The Project Management Expert

In 2021 The Project Management Expert was born from a 1/4 decade experience with the aim of Taking Project Managers Further. Further in their project management knowledge, in complimentary skillsets, in their careers. This is achieved through the toolstips (sample) and templates.

17. ISO 21500:2012

In 2012 Project Management gained ISO certification. As the ISO governing body says on its website ‘This International Standard provides guidance for project management and can be used by any type of organization, including public, private or community organizations, and for any type of project, irrespective of complexity, size or duration.“

Project Management is undoubtedly recognised as an industry standard.

16. Total Cost Management

Total Cost Management (TCM) was presented in 2006 by Thomas D. Fromm and John Nunnemaker for AACE. It looks at the total cost of managing a project from before the Project Initiation stage begins. 

TCM is popular among industries that require large capital investments, such as the construction industry. 

15. Project Management Day

In 2004, Laverne Johnson and Lori Milhaven along with members of IIL created International Project Management Day on the first Thursday of November. It  recognizes the dedication and hard work of project managers across the world.

Many conferences, seminars and celebrations take place on this day. Its typically discussed on social media using the hashtag #IPMDay

14. The Agile Manifesto

In 2001 17 men met at a ski retreat and crafted the Agile Manifesto for software development. The main philosophy behind the Agile Manifesto is to focus on delivering value to the customer through quick and iterative releases, rather than trying to deliver a complete product all at once. 

Agile acknowledges that the customer may not always know exactly what they want from a project, at the start of the project. Change Requests and rigid processes were hindering fast progress.

Agile is now an umbrella term that includes dozens of frameworks and methodologies from DevOps to Kanban to XP. 

13. CCPM

Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM) was developed by Eliyahu M. Goldrat in 1997. Whereas everything up to this point focused on tasks and activities via Gantt, PERT and CPM, CCPM instead focused on the people or resources undertaking the task.  CCPM focuses on identifying and eliminating the bad practices undertaken before, during and after the assigned task. Task-switching, Parkinsons Law and lack of prioritisation are the best known examples. 

The term “critical chain” refers to the need for additional resource capacity that will be used to shorten the time needed to complete a given project without sacrificing quality

12. PRINCE2

PRINCE2 (PRojects In Controlled Environments) was created by the UK Government based on previous iterations called PROMPT and PRINCE.  But it wasn’t until 1996 that the project management methodology matured enough to become widely adopted by industry worldwide. It was adopted because of how it could be generically applied to many industries.

By following its 6 aspects, 7 principles, 7 themes and 7 processes, its difficult not to deliver a successful projec

11. Earned Value Management

Earned Value Management (EVM) may have its modern roots in the 1960s within the American Department of Defence, but it’s popularity really took hold around 1996 when NASA adopted ‘EVM or Equal’.

EVM is like a Project Managers superpower to predict the future. It can used to determine if the budget is above or below predictions and if the plan is behind or ahead of schedule. This information can then be projected into the future to accurately estimate when the project will finish & at what cost.

Example: Lets say your project is 100 days long, with 100 (units of) deliverables. Now say you are 48 days in, but only delivered 20 units of deliverables. EV will tell you that you are 58% behind schedule. Based on this rate of delivery you can predict when the project is complete.

10. PMBOK®

In 1996 the PMI® (see Milestone 6) first published a guide to standardise project management practices. This guide that they published is called the “Project Management Body of Knowledge” or PMBOK® for short. Students of the PMBOK® become recognised practitioners after taking a lengthy examination in the aim to become certified as a Project Management Professional (PMP®). 

The PMBOK is now on its 7th edition (370 pages) and includes agile practices within its 12 principles.. 

9. Scrum

Hirotaka Takeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka were the first to introduced the term ‘SCRUM’. They used this the context of product development in a Harvard Business Review article in 1986 entitled ‘The New New Product Development Game’. It describes how a cross functional team move the ball down the field as a single unit, passing the ball back & forth as they do so.Then in 1995 Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber took that idea and ran with it when they presented ‘The SCRUM Development Process’ at the OOPSLA conference in Texas.They, along with other key individuals drafted the Agile Manifesto in 2001 and changed the course of Software development practices worldwide.

The main philosophy behind Agile and Scrum is to focus on delivering value to the customer through quick and iterative releases, rather than trying to deliver a complete product all at once. 

Agile projects are typically organized into short cycles, called “sprints,”. These sprints  typically last two weeks. Each sprint starts with a planning meeting, where the team decides what tasks need to be completed during that Sprint. As the Sprint progresses, the team members work together to complete the tasks and deliverables. A review meeting takes place at the end of the Sprint. The team discusses what went well and what could be improved for future Sprints. 

8. Theory of Constraints

In 1984 Eliyahu M. Goldratt published a fictional book that introduced the world to the Theory of Constraints. It looked at how they identified the  bottlenecks that cause delays to projects and how to deal with them.

The central idea is to identify the limiting factors for through-put and to deal with them so that they no longer limit the rate of through-put.

7. The Mythical Man Month

In 1975 Frederick P. Brooks Jr. published an essay entitled The Mythical Man Month. This later became known as Brooks Law and can be summed up as

‘Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later’.

Tasks can not be perfectly split up and in fact the overhead of communication and the task & relationship inter-dependencies increases. 

It can sometimes be bluntly rephrased to note that nine women can not make a baby in one month.

6. PMI Organization is created

The Project Management Institute (PMI) was formed in 1969 in Atlanta, Georgia. It was created with the intention of furthering the practices of Project Management, volunteering project management skillsets, such as scheduling to projects and creating communities through seminars.

The PMI has grown through its worldwide charters, thought leadership and Project Management standards and certifications. 

5. WBS – Work Breakdown structure

The concept of the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) was first published by the US Department of Defence & NASA in 1962. The WBS is a breakdown or decomposition of the tasks, phases and deliverables of an activity. It is represented in a tree like structure, with various branches or parent & child nodes.  

4. PERT – Program Evaluation Review Technique

Also developed in 1957 by the US Navy, PERT estimates the duration of uncertain events in a probabilistic manner. It is often combined with CPM to provide a more robust project schedule. It achieves its aims by its three point estimation technique and determining the ‘slack’ time between tasks.

It was first notably used to great effect to plan the 1968 Winter Olympics. 

2. Gantt Charts

Two years before his death an American Henry Gantt (1861-1919) created a deceptively simple way of communicating complex information. In what was once written in a table, he visually communicated the progress of multiple tasks over time.

These Gantt charts were created during his time at the US Ordinance Department to track the movement of munitions. They quickly became popular & spread widely after his death. 

A Gantt chart includes a list of tasks along the left side, and then horizontal bars mapping against dates at the top. These bars indicate both when each task will be completed and the current progress. The length of each bar represents the amount of time required to complete the task.

So great was its impact on the project management of the Hoover Dam that a bronze plaque of a Gantt chart is proudly positioned at the entrance. 

These days Gantt charts are often combined with other project management tools, such as Critical Path analysis or PERT analysis. However, these hadn’t been invented yet.

3. The Critical Path Method

In 1957 James E. Kelley Jr. and his team of engineers developed a new technique called the Critical Path Method (CPM). CPM is a scheduling technique that allows for the identification of a sequence of activities that must be completed on time in order for the project to be completed on schedule.

Critical path analysis is a  set of algorithmic calculations that used to take a long time to complete. From the 1980s onwards mini-computers were used to achieve this in minutes. The critical path method can be combined with the Gantt chart to visually represent the critical path.

1. The Pyramids of Giza

Rudimentary Project Management practices must have been applied to the construction the Pyramids of Giza when they were built roughly 2550 to 2490 B.C. The temporary endeavour to gather the requirements, plan the design, source the material and coordinate the tasks has resulted in a lasting monument to the Pharaohs. But it also highlights how best practices must have been applied to the management of the project, presumably without the advanced optimisation techniques now used by Project Managers.  

The first project management milestone - the Pyramids of Giza
29 September 2024

20 Project Management Milestones

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