My earliest PM tool was the Sheet Index. I think it was actually an AIA form that we filled out by hand. On the left side of the sheet was a vertical list of the sheets, and reading horizontally you could fill in the percentage of completion. I found it useful because I could look at it and see where the work was lagging: elevations at 30% complete, for example, while the plans were at 75% told me to spend more time on the elevations.
Of course, that was in the pre-CADD and pre-PC days, when the fax machine was the current marvel of technology. Some of us recall putting in the specs requiring the GC to have a fax machine at the job trailer in order to more quickly send him sketches when problems arose.
When technology shifted to pin-bar drafting the PM tools again needed to adjust. We started creating "cartoon sets" of drawings, as these were an aid not only to organizing the sheets in the set, but also organizing the various overlay layers that would compose each composite sheet.
When the 386 chip came along, PC's finally became robust enough to handle CADD work. Now, instead of physical layers we had electronic layers and the ability to manipulate them in order to create new sheets of drawings with ease. The numbers of drawings sheets increased as a result - did anyone ever create a "slab plan" prior to CADD? Office manuals now had to have layer standards - what information was put on which layer, and what color pen was the layer to be. This affected the individual sheets, but did nothing for managing the overall project, other than make it look uniform.
Specialization and the number of consultants increased, so project directories now became multi-page and discussions about how work was to be sequenced and delivered became part of PM. Schedules, chiefly simple Gantt charts with basic milestones were created as part of project controls, and as a reminder to all the consultants of the delivery dates they needed to meet.
So what do we have? The drawing index is still around, although much more expanded is size. The cartoon set is still used, especially where a floor plan needs to be divided into partial plans to keep them at a workable scale. Project directories and basic schedules round out the very basic PM tools, perhaps with some organizational charts and flow charts for how information is shared and how submittals get processed.
It's not likely enough. They lack the ability to provide solid information on how much work is complete against how much time and/or dollars have been expended. Scope control is also missing, as is any real implementation of Quality Control processes. The basics of a communication plan are there, but it probably needs to be repeated to every new member of the design team, to let them know that on this job things are done this way. The schedule is not detailed enough to show lesser milestones - things like the ID needs to have the ceiling designed by this date in order to have the Lighting Designer have his work completed by that date, so that the Electrical Engineer can have his work complete when the construction document phase is finished.
To create this sort of PM plan means more detailed planning in the early phases of a project, but that's a shift that has been underway for a long time. More on that in another post.