Project management practices have evolved as the discipline grew from managing defence and engineering projects to delivering information systems, supporting organizational transformation, and managing megaprojects supporting national infrastructure needs. Thus, from starting as a tactical tool, project management grew to deliver organizational and national strategies. The next challenge for project management is to support the achievement of sustainable development goals to tackle societal challenges. How can it do this? In this talk we propose a way forward for project management to contribute to global sustainability by tracing the history of projects from prehistoric times to the 21st century. We outline the development of project management using the lens of socio-technical transitions to analyse technological niches developed to advance the field, and socio-technical regimes that have supported the development of project management to adopt these technological niches to meet changes that appear at the landscape level. By analysing the history of projects and project management, we argue that the discipline has continuously evolved as a transition innovation that can meet the challenges posed by sustainable development. However, further development of project management is needed to achieve that.
