by Mike Ososki, PMP
It was 1967 when the idea seed to birth PMI began to grow. And much (most?) of it happened right here in Atlanta! Our recent Dinner Meeting was pleased to host Mr. James Snyder, co-founder of PMI, who shared his view of how it began, gained momentum and grew to where we are today: nearly half a million members in 200+ countries.
Project management has always been with us in some form or fashion. We apply it every time we ask how to get from A to B in multiple steps. Some tools are timeless milestones, such as Henry Gantt’s chart, circa 1910. Henry worked at Midvale Steel in Philadelphia, a great place to apply PM.
As technical endeavor complexities increased through the 1950s and 60s, especially in aerospace, construction, and defense industries, project management kept pace, advancing alongside and above, to help lead the way. New tools and a new profession made sense, with emerging IT and a need to improve communication. In 1954, CPM and PERT were born (Critical Path Method and Program Evaluation Review Technique), with great benefit to help get big things done well.
For what was to become PMI, much germination, meetings, and deliberation happened through 1968, mostly in Atlanta, New Orleans, and Pennsylvania. Not surprisingly, Georgia Tech figures in prominently to help propel PMI’s success. Their 1969 seminar offering Advanced Project Management Concepts lent good credibility and helped spread the word, along with strong support from other national academic professionals. Mr. Snyder and four other visionaries founded PMI in that year, and incorporated it as a nonprofit in Pennsylvania, where Jim resides. His co-founders were E.A. “Ned” Engman, Susan Gallagher, Eric Jenett, and Dr. J. Gordon Davis.
They saw the need for an association to foster professionalism in project planning and scheduling, so they formulated their purpose and set specific objectives. They picked a name: American Planning & Scheduling Society (doesn’t have quite the same ring, does it?) They selected leadership and speakers, established agendas, planned events and advertising, and got sponsored by Georgia Tech’s School of Industrial & Systems Engineering. They worked it all just like project managers.
1969 saw the name change to PMI, acquisition of start-up funding, and drafting of constitution and by-laws. They held a dinner at Atlanta’s American Motel Hotel, with the presentation PMI—An Organization Profile, made the invitation, and launched with 28 fresh new members. 1970 brought publication of the first Project Management Quarterly, mailed to about 120 members. From there, it just kept growing, as being a global organization has always been part of the plan. Jim shared photos of the many PMI locations through the years—from a 1967 Atlanta home dining room to the current corporate office building in Newton Square, PA.
Jim feels that good eating and dinners must continue to be part of PMI’s good progress, (so we’re doing it right every other month). He believes in interrelationships, and would like to see more getting back to basics, asserting that “why” matters, but only if we learn from experience. He also advocates more culture shift from “who is right” to “what is right.” And finally, he wholeheartedly endorses the maxim, “Unless you know about yesterday, you can’t create a new tomorrow.”