The Project Management Institute (PMI) was founded in 1969 on the outskirts of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA by five volunteers who had noticed the common practices of project management among very different fields such as plant engineering or pharmaceuticals.

In 1976, the idea of documenting and standardizing these common practices and thereby thinking of project management as an independent profession first appears.

This leads to the writing of the first, ground-breaking "Project Management Body of Knowledge" (PMBOK) in 1987 which contains a code of ethics, the fundamental standards, divided into six areas of knowledge and guidelines for the accreditation of trainers and for Certification. In fact, this last point had already been active since 1983 for accreditation (Western Carolina University) and from 1984 for Certification.

In 1996 "A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide)" was published which revised and expanded the material from 1987 and which is updated every 4 years.

The number of PMI members has grown from 10,000 in 1993 to over 260,000 in 171 countries in the world in 2008, while there are about 250,000 certified PMPs, constantly growing.

The areas, in which the first members worked, have moved from the fields of engineering, construction and defence, to a high prevalence in the areas of finance, ICT and services.