ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the evolution of data analytics employed in projects, from the 1950s through today. The data used was the data that happened to be captured. The conscious and systematic use of data to inform managerial decisions is rooted in the work of the American industrial engineer, Frederick Winslow Taylor, whose studies in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries laid the foundation for “scientific management.” The development of configuration management in the 1950s and earned value management in the late 1960s dramatically demonstrated the value of employing systems thinking coupled with cost, schedule, and requirements metrics to manage large, complex programs effectively. The good news was that the computers were storing a vast array of valuable data that could offer guidance on improving organizational performance. The bad news was that in its present state, with formatting inconsistencies, the data was marginally usable.
