“work ” was first scientifically studied by Fredrick Taylor (1856-1915), who alsowas the first to consider process design. But not until the early of 1950s were many project management techniques assembles into a single , coherent system: the focus of that enormously complex effort was the U.S. Defense Department’s development of the Polaris missile . The techniques , which included Henry Gantt’s chart , which he created manage Army logistics , were essential to managing the intricacies of how work among an array of specialists would be handed off, and how the schedule itself would be managed . At the center of this effort was literally a project “war room” , which prominently displayed huge Program Evaluation Review Techniques (PERT) charts.
Following quickly in military’s footsteps were the automotive and movie industries, and private and public engineering organizations. All shared the need for creating unique outcomes, and they found that the project management techniques helped cross-functional teams define, manage, and execute the work needed to accomplish these ends. Along with such techniques as histograms and network diagrams, early practitioners of project management also employed the concept of a project life cycle and began to incorporate that thinking when generating more complex Work Breakdown Structures (WBSs). A WBS comprehensively identifies the individual tasks required to achieve an objective.