Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT)

Question. What is Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT)?
Answer.
PERT is a method to analyze the involved tasks in completing a given project, especially the time needed to complete each task, and identifying the minimum time needed to complete the total project.

PERT was developed primarily to simplify the planning and scheduling of large and complex projects. It was able to incorporate uncertainty by making it possible to schedule a project while not knowing precisely the details and durations of all the activities. It is more of an event-oriented technique rather than start- and completion-oriented, and is used more in projects where time, rather than cost, is the major factor. It is applied to very large-scale, one-time, complex, non-routine infrastructure and Research and Development projects.

For each module in a project, duration is estimated as follows:
1. Time taken to complete a project or module under normal conditions, tnormal.
2. Time taken to complete a project or module with minimum time (all resources available), tmin
3. Time taken to complete a project or module with maximum time (resource constraints), tmax
4. Time taken to complete from previous related history, thistory

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Program_Evaluation_and_Review_Technique

http://www.answers.com/topic/program-evaluation-and-review-technique