Page 35 - Global Project Management Handbook

THE EVOLUTION OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT 1-17

The Internet (August 1962)
The creation and building of the Internet was not a monolithic project. Rather, it was a
patchwork of individual and organizational contributions pieced together through the
years. It was an immense integration of much solitary effort and cooperative work. It
came into being where knowledge and competency resided in thousands of uncelebrated
places—laboratories, classrooms, offices, social gatherings, and so forth—where people
knowledgeable in computers and telephone lines got together and tried to improve com-
munication among themselves.
Professor and innovator J. C. R. Lickrider played a role much akin to a “virtual project
manager,” throwing out ideas and concepts to fertile minds that worked informally
together to create a means of communication that led to the World Wide Web and other
supporting technologies and protocols that are known today as the Internet. [A fascinat-
ing summary description of the evolution of the Internet can be found in James Tobin,
“The Internet,” Chapter 8 in Great Project (New York: Free Press, 2001).]

MODERN PROJECT MANAGEMENT PRACTICES

Project Management Today
Project management has evolved over the centuries from a rudimentary form of managing
projects to a sophisticated process that has been defined in literature as well as being pro-
moted by major professional associations around the world—namely, the Project
Management Institute (PMI) and its chapters, the International Project Management
Association (IPMA) with its national associations, the Japanese Project Management
Forum, and the Australian Institute of Project Management. These organizations have
defined project management for their members in bodies of knowledge and competence
baselines.
The PMI, for example, has nine areas of focus for project management that define the
categories of its recognized body of knowledge. These categories are shown in Table 1.1.
These areas have been developed over time and through the experiences of project
practitioners. The PMI has been developing and evolving its body of knowledge since

1983—nearly 25 years—for use by its members.
The IPMA, headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland, and its national associations have a
body of knowledge (referred to as a competence baseline) that describes the topics that
are important for their planning and implementation of project management. Table 1.2
lists topics that the IPMA uses to define and describe its body of knowledge.

TABLE 1.1 PMI Categories of Project Management

Project time management
Project cost management
Project quality management
Project scope management
Project risk management
Project procurement management
Project quality management
Project human resources management
Project integration management