| Project management is quickly becoming the method of management
for more and more industries. Projects are being done for everything
from building the largest skyscrapers to planning the smallest wedding.
Many large companies now have a stated policy to manage their entire
company using project management methods. We hope to encourage the
use of project management in all businesses with this book, and we hope to
encourage and help project managers learn more about the Guide to the
Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) and pass the Project
Management Professional (PMP) examination.
If the professional organization for project managers, the Project Management
Institute (PMI), has been instrumental in promoting project management,
we should be able to get some idea of the growth of project
management by looking at the growth of the membership in this organization.
Founded in 1969, PMI has now been in existence more than thirty
years. When I joined PMI in 1989 they boasted of having about five thousand
members and a thousand Project Management Professionals (PMPs).
Since 1989 the organization has experienced fantastic growth. This year,
2002, as we enter a new century and a new millennium, PMI’s membership
is ninety thousand, and the number of PMPs is thirty-seven thousand. These
numbers represent a growth greater than even PMI had anticipated.
Of course, all project managers and those working in the project management
profession are not members of PMI, just as all people practicing
any profession do not join a professional organization. If the growth of PMI
is any indication of the growth in the project management profession itself,
then it can easily be said that the profession is growing by great leaps. |
