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When Did “A Certain Project Management Practice” Start?
February 2, 2010 | Author: PM Hut | Filed under: History, Project Management Musings
When Did “A Certain Project Management Practice” Start?
By Johanna Rothman
On mailing lists, when I speak, in email, people ask, “When did ’some principle, approach, or whatever’ start?”
A long time ago.
Timeboxes have been around forever. I’m pretty sure that when the Pharoahs told their architects to build a pyramid, they said, “And do it by this-date! Or else!” I know that military projects used timeboxes. We used them in the mid-70’s and I heard that they were used when my managers were young engineers.
Inch-pebbles were first defined by some Air Force guy in the 40’s. (That’s the first published date that I know of.) The Software Program Manager’s Network (and I!) publicized the concept more in the 80’s and 90’s.
Non-waterfall lifecycles, such as iterative and incremental have been used for years. Any of those projects where you had to show a demo partway through the project was either an iterative or incremental lifecycle. The projects I worked on in the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s had feature-based teams where we had to finish our features and integrate and test as we proceeded.
What’s different about projects now is this: the easy work is done. Waterfall only works on shorter, smaller, and not-too-complex projects. You can make it work on longer, bigger, and complex projects–it’s really hard to do so, but you can. Now, if us mortal folks are faced with a longer, large, and more difficult project, it makes sense to use the tools (including the lifecycle that fits the context best) to make the project work.
I don’t understand why anyone wants to know when some practice or approach started. Assume it was a long time ago. (I used continuous integration at university, because there was no other way to know if what I was writing was any good. I first paired in 1982. Kicking and screaming, but I did pair. I first used version control in 1976 when I worked with another developer.)
Does it really matter when a practice started?
The real question is this: Is this approach or practice a good idea for my project? That’s a useful question. Ask it.
The original article can be found at: http://jrothman.com/blog/mpd/2009/12/when-did-fill-in-the-blank-start.html
Johanna Rothman consults, speaks, and writes on managing high-technology product development. Johanna is the author of Manage It!’Your Guide to Modern Pragmatic Project Management’. She is the coauthor of the pragmatic Behind Closed Doors, Secrets of Great Management, and author of the highly acclaimed Hiring the Best Knowledge Workers, Techies & Nerds: The Secrets and Science of Hiring Technical People. And, Johanna is a host and session leader at the Amplifying Your Effectiveness (AYE) conference (http://www.ayeconference.com). You can see Johanna’s other writings at http://www.jrothman.com.
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