Timeline of project management

This article covers the historical timeline of project management. There is a general understanding that the history of modern project management started around 1950. Until 1900, projects were generally managed by creative architects and engineers themselves, among those, for example, Christopher Wren, Thomas Telford and Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

Early civilizations

2570 BC Great Pyramid of Giza completed. Some records remain of how the work was managed: e.g. there were managers of each of the four faces of the pyramid, responsible for their completion.
208 BC The first major construction of the Great Wall of China.

17th - 19th century

Christopher Wren was a 17th-century English designer, astronomer, geometer, mathematician-physicist and architect. Wren designed 55 of 87 List of [Christopher Wren churches in London|London churches] after the Great fire of London in 1666, such as St Paul's Cathedral in 1710, as well as many secular buildings.
Thomas Telford was a Scottish stonemason, architect and civil engineer and a road, bridge and canal builder, who managed the Ellesmere Canal and Pontcysyllte Aqueduct.
Isambard Kingdom Brunel was a British engineer who created the Great Western Railway, a series of steamships, such as the first with a propeller, and numerous bridges and tunnels.

20th century

1910s The Gantt chart developed by Henry Laurence Gantt

;1950s

1950s The Critical path method invented
1950s The US DoD used modern project management techniques in their Polaris project.
1956 The American Association of Cost Engineers formed
1958 The Program Evaluation and Review Technique method invented

;1960s

1969 Project Management Institute launched to promote project management profession

;1970s

1975 PROMPT methodology created by Simpact Systems Ltd
1975 The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering by Fred Brooks published

;1980s

1984 The Goal by Eliyahu M. Goldratt published
1986 Scrum was named as a project management style in the article The New New Product Development Game by Takeuchi and Nonaka
1987 First Project Management Body of Knowledge Guide published as a white paper by PMI
1989 PRINCE method derived from PROMPTII is published by the UK Government agency CCTA and becomes the UK standard for all government information projects

;1990s

1996 PRINCE2 published by CCTA as a generic product management methodology for all UK government projects.
1997 Critical Chain by Eliyahu M. Goldratt published

21st century

2001 AgileAlliance formed to promote "lightweight" software development projects
2006 Total Cost Management Framework release by AACE
2009 PRINCE2 2009 edition, compatible with other methods and more flexible in approach