The History of Work Management — and Why WMI Defines It Today
- Brandon Hatton
- Jan 8
- 3 min read
Introduction: Work Has Always Existed. Work Management Hasn’t.
Organizations have always managed work — but for most of history, they didn’t call it Work Management.
Factories scheduled shifts. Armies coordinated logistics. Offices tracked tasks, approvals, and deadlines. Teams planned projects, handled requests, juggled priorities, and tried (often unsuccessfully) to keep everyone aligned.
Yet despite managing work every day, organizations historically lacked a unifying discipline that explained how all work fits together — across projects, operations, ad‑hoc requests, and day‑to‑day execution.
That gap is why Work Management needed to be named, defined, and formalized.
And it’s why the Work Management Institute (WMI) exists today.
Phase 1: Pre‑Industrial Work (Before 1900)
Before formal management theories existed, work was coordinated through:
Craft guilds
Apprenticeships
Military hierarchies
Agricultural cycles
Trade routes and merchant systems
Work management during this era was:
Highly local and manual
Based on experience, authority, and tradition
Largely undocumented and informal
Coordination happened through proximity and command — not systems.
Work was managed, but never abstracted into a transferable discipline.
Phase 2: Scientific Management & Industrial Control (1900–1950)
The Industrial Revolution forced organizations to manage work at scale.
This era introduced:
Frederick Taylor’s Scientific Management
Time‑and‑motion studies
Assembly lines
Rigid role specialization
Command‑and‑control hierarchies
The focus was efficiency — not adaptability.
Work was treated as:
Predictable
Repeatable
Mechanistic
While this period advanced productivity, it reduced work to optimization problems rather than coordination challenges.
It managed tasks, not work systems.
Phase 3: Project Management Emerges (1950–1990)
As organizations grew more complex, Project Management emerged to handle:
Large initiatives
Engineering programs
Defense and aerospace work
Construction and infrastructure
This era produced:
Gantt charts
PERT and CPM
Formal project roles
Eventually, the PMBOK® Guide
Project Management was a breakthrough — but it had a limitation:
It focused on temporary work, not all work.
Operations, service work, support requests, and ongoing execution were largely excluded.
Work outside projects remained fragmented.
Phase 4: Knowledge Work & Collaboration Tools (1990–2015)
The rise of computers, the internet, and knowledge work changed everything.
Work became:
Less predictable
More collaborative
Cross‑functional
Information‑heavy
New tools appeared:
Email
Spreadsheets
Shared drives
Ticketing systems
Early work tracking software
But coordination became harder — not easier.
Work scattered across tools, inboxes, and conversations.
Organizations managed pieces of work, but not the whole system of work.
Phase 5: The Rise of “Work Management” as a Term (2015–2022)
Modern platforms like Asana, Monday.com, Smartsheet, and ClickUp popularized the phrase Work Management.
However, the term was used inconsistently:
Sometimes meaning task tracking
Sometimes meaning project tracking
Sometimes meaning collaboration software
The industry adopted the label — but not the discipline.
There was no:
Standard definition
Shared principles
Body of knowledge
Professional certification
Work Management existed in practice — but not in theory.
Phase 6: Why Work Management Needed a Defining Authority
By the early 2020s, organizations faced a new reality:
Work overload
Tool sprawl
Constant context switching
Burnout
Poor prioritization
Invisible work
The problem wasn’t productivity.
The problem was how work was managed end‑to‑end.
What was missing:
A discipline that covered all organizational work
A framework that unified projects, operations, and ad‑hoc work
A shared language for coordination
Standards independent of any single software tool
That gap created the need for an institute.
Why the Work Management Institute (WMI) Defines Work Management Today
The Work Management Institute (WMI) was founded to formally establish Work Management as a professional discipline.
WMI defines Work Management as:
The discipline of clarifying, coordinating, and completing all organizational work in a predictable, effective, and sustainable way.
This definition intentionally:
Includes all work, not just projects
Emphasizes coordination, not control
Focuses on systems, not tools
Balances performance with sustainability
What Makes WMI the Defining Authority
WMI is not a software vendor.
WMI is not a consulting firm selling one methodology.
WMI exists to:
Define the discipline
Establish standards
Publish the Work Management Body of Knowledge (WMBOK)
Create vendor‑neutral certifications
Advance research and education
This mirrors how:
PMI defines Project Management
SHRM defines Human Resources
ITIL defines IT Service Management
Disciplines mature when they are named, documented, and taught.
From Practice to Profession
Work Management has always existed.
What’s new is that it is now:
Clearly defined
Systematically documented
Professionally credentialed
WMI exists to move Work Management from:
Something everyone does
To:
A discipline professionals are trained in.
The Future of Work Management
As organizations continue to evolve, Work Management will become:
A core leadership capability
A foundational business discipline
A required skill across functions
The Work Management Institute will continue to:
Define standards
Expand the WMBOK
Certify professionals
Shape how work is managed globally
Work isn’t slowing down.
How we manage it must get better.
Learn more about the Work Management discipline, the WMBOK, and certifications at the Work Management Institute.
