Citation (IEEE): P. Weaver, “The Origins of Modern Project Management,” presented at the Fourth Annual PMI College of Scheduling Conference, Vancouver, BC, Canada, Apr. 2007. [Online]. Available: https://mosaicprojects.com.au/PDF_Papers/P050_Origins_of_Modern_PM.pdf
What it argues
Weaver traces how project management grew from an ancient practice into a modern discipline. He follows early bar charts, the critical path method and PERT in the late 1950s, cost and schedule integration in defense programs, the founding of professional bodies, and the spread of scheduling software. He argues that many of today’s tools and assumptions are best understood through the large programs and computing constraints that shaped them.