Project management software are computer programs that help plan, organize, and manage resources. Depending on the sophistication of the software, it can manage

estimation Estimation (or estimating) is the process of finding an estimate or approximation, which is a value that is usable for some purpose even if input data may be incomplete, uncertain, or unstable. The value is nonetheless usable because it is d ...

and planning,

scheduling A schedule (, ) or a timetable, as a basic time-management tool, consists of a list of times at which possible tasks, events, or actions are intended to take place, or of a sequence of events in the chronological order in which such things ...

, cost control, budget management,

resource allocation In economics, resource allocation is the assignment of available resources to various uses. In the context of an entire economy, resources can be allocated by various means, such as markets, or planning. In project management, resource allocatio ...

, collaboration software,

communication Communication is commonly defined as the transmission of information. Its precise definition is disputed and there are disagreements about whether Intention, unintentional or failed transmissions are included and whether communication not onl ...

decision-making In psychology, decision-making (also spelled decision making and decisionmaking) is regarded as the Cognition, cognitive process resulting in the selection of a belief or a course of action among several possible alternative options. It could be ...

, quality management,

time management Time management is the process of planning and exercising conscious control of time spent on specific activities—especially to increase effectiveness, efficiency and productivity. Time management involves demands relating to work, social ...

and

documentation Documentation is any communicable material that is used to describe, explain or instruct regarding some attributes of an object, system or procedure, such as its parts, assembly, installation, maintenance, and use. As a form of knowledge managem ...

or administration systems. Numerous PC and browser-based project management software and

contract management software Contract management software constitutes software and associated data management used to support contract management, contract lifecycle management, and contractor management on projects in the procurement of goods and services. It may be used tog ...

products and services are available.

History

Predecessors

The first historically relevant year for the development of project management software was 1896, marked by the introduction of the Harmonogram. Polish economist Karol Adamiecki attempted to display task development in a floating chart and laid the foundation for project management software as it is today. In 1912,

Henry Gantt Henry Laurence Gantt (; May 20, 1861 – November 23, 1919) was an American mechanical engineer and management consultant who is best known for his work in the development of scientific management. He created the Gantt chart in the 1910s. Gant ...

replaced the Harmonogram with the more advanced

Gantt chart A Gantt chart is a bar chart that illustrates a schedule (project management), project schedule. It was designed and popularized by Henry Gantt around the years 1910–1915. Modern Gantt charts also show the Dependency (project management), depe ...

, a scheduling diagram that broke ship design tasks down for the purposes of Hoover Dam in early 1931. Today's Gantt charts are almost the same as their original counterparts and are a part of many project management systems.

Emergence of the term "project management" and modernized techniques

The term ''

project management Project management is the process of supervising the work of a Project team, team to achieve all project goals within the given constraints. This information is usually described in project initiation documentation, project documentation, crea ...

'' was not used prior to 1954 when

US Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Air force, air service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is one of the six United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Tracing its ori ...

General Bernard Adolph Schriever introduced it for military purposes. In the years to follow, project management gained relevance in the business world — a trend that had a lot to do with the formation of the American Association of Engineers AACE (1956), and Rang and DuPont's Critical Path Method, which has been used to calculate project duration ever since 1957. The trend is also related to the appearance of the Program Evaluation Review Technique (PERT) in 1958. PERT advanced project monitoring, enabling users to simultaneously monitor tasks, evaluate their quality, and estimate the time needed to accomplish each of them. Like

s and CPM, PERT was invented for military purposes, this time for the US Navy Polaris missile submarine program. In 1965, there was a new improvement in project management technology. The

US Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD, or DOD) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government charged with coordinating and supervising the six U.S. armed services: the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Space Force, ...

presented the

work breakdown structure A work-breakdown structure (WBS) in project management and systems engineering is a breakdown of a project into smaller components. It is a key project management element that organizes the team's work into manageable sections. The Project Mana ...

(WBS) to dissolve projects into even smaller visual units, organizing them in a hierarchical tree structure. WBS was an inspiration for Winston Royce’s Waterfall Method (1970) where management phases are organized in a way that doesn’t allow a new task to begin before the previous ones are completed.

The first project management products and associations

In the period between 1965 and 1969, two of the leading project management associations were formed: the International Project Management Association (IPMA) in Europe, and the

Project Management Institute The Project Management Institute (PMI, legally Project Management Institute, Inc.) is a U.S.-based not-for-profit professional organization for project management. Overview PMI serves more than five million professionals including over 680,0 ...

(PMI) which trains project management professionals and issues certificates. With businesses shifting towards technology-based and paperless methods, the first project management systems started to emerge.

Oracle An oracle is a person or thing considered to provide insight, wise counsel or prophetic predictions, most notably including precognition of the future, inspired by deities. If done through occultic means, it is a form of divination. Descript ...

and

Artemis In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, Artemis (; ) is the goddess of the hunting, hunt, the wilderness, wild animals, transitions, nature, vegetation, childbirth, Kourotrophos, care of children, and chastity. In later tim ...

launched their project managers in 1977, while Scitor Corporation did the same in 1979. Many improvements followed in the upcoming decades. In 1986,

Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The institution was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools. In 1912, it became the Carnegie Institu ...

’s

Software Engineering Institute Software Engineering Institute (SEI) is a Federally funded research and development centers, federally funded research and development center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded in 1984, the institute is now sponsored by the Uni ...

introduced capability maturity software, a five-level project management method for rapidly maturing processes, while in 1988, users were introduced to earned value management which added processes’ scope and cost to the schedule. The trend continued with

PRINCE2 PRINCE2 (PRojects IN Controlled Environments) is a structured project management method and practitioner certification programme. PRINCE2 emphasises dividing projects into manageable and controllable stages. It is adopted in many countries wor ...

(1996) which increased the number of processes to seven, because of which developers considered designing products for managing complex projects. In 2001, they adopted the Agile project management concept and focused on adaptive planning and flexible response to changes. In 2006, users were already able to trigger total cost management, a framework that helps control and reduce costs in project management.

Tasks and activities

Scheduling

One of the most common project management software tool types is

tools. Scheduling tools are used to sequence project activities and assign dates and resources to them. The detail and sophistication of a schedule produced by a scheduling tool can vary considerably with the project management methodology used, the features provided and the scheduling methods supported. Scheduling tools may include support for: * Multiple dependency relationship types between activities. * Resource assignment and leveling * Critical path * Activity duration estimation and probability-based simulation * Activity cost accounting.

Providing information

Project planning Project planning is part of project management, which relates to the use of schedules such as Gantt charts to plan and subsequently report progress within the project environment. Project planning can be done manually or by the use of project ma ...

software can be expected to provide information to various people or stakeholders, and can be used to measure and justify the level of effort required to complete the project(s). Typical requirements might include: * Overview information on how long tasks will take to complete. * Early warning of any risks to the project. * Information on workload, for planning holidays. *

Evidence Evidence for a proposition is what supports the proposition. It is usually understood as an indication that the proposition is truth, true. The exact definition and role of evidence vary across different fields. In epistemology, evidence is what J ...

. * Historical information on how projects have progressed, and in particular, how actual and planned performance are related. * Optimum utilization of available resources. * Cost maintenance. * Collaboration with each teammate and customer. * Instant communication with collaborators and customers.

Types

Collaborative

A collaborative system is designed to support multiple users modifying different sections of the plan at once; for example, updating the areas they personally are responsible for such that those estimates get integrated into the overall plan.

Web-based A web application (or web app) is application software that is created with web technologies and runs via a web browser. Web applications emerged during the late 1990s and allowed for the server to dynamically build a response to the request, ...

tools, including

extranet An extranet is a controlled private computer network that allows communication with business partners, vendors and suppliers or an authorized set of customers. It extends intranet to trusted outsiders. It provides access to needed services for au ...

s, generally fall into this category, but have the limitation that they can only be used when the user has live Internet access. To address this limitation, some software tools using client–server architecture provide a

rich client In computer networking, a rich client (also called a heavy, fat or thick client) is a computer (a " client" in client–server network architecture) that typically provides rich functionality independent of the central server. This kind of comput ...

that runs on users'

desktop computer A desktop computer, often abbreviated as desktop, is a personal computer designed for regular use at a stationary location on or near a desk (as opposed to a portable computer) due to its size and power requirements. The most common configuratio ...

and replicates project and task information to other project team members through a central server when users connect periodically to the network. Some tools allow team members to check out their schedules (and others' as read only) to work on them while not on the network. When reconnecting to the database, all changes are synchronized with the other schedules.

Visual

A common problem in project management is a difficulty with both viewing and understanding large amounts of fluctuating project data. To tackle this, some project management software utilize

information visualization Data and information visualization (data viz/vis or info viz/vis) is the practice of designing and creating Graphics, graphic or visual Representation (arts), representations of a large amount of complex quantitative and qualitative data and i ...

, so that users can more easily find, analyze and make changes to their data. To avoid

information overload Information overload (also known as infobesity, infoxication, or information anxiety) is the difficulty in understanding an issue and Decision making, effectively making decisions when one has too much information (TMI) about that issue, and is ...

, the visualization mantra of “overview first, zoom and filter, then details on demand” is often followed.