PERT stands for Program Evaluation and Review Technique; CPM stands for the Critical Path Method. These are conceptually distinct, but are frequently taught together, as we'll do here.
The PERT and CPM procedures have been greatly expanded and elaborated upon by the project management profession. These elaborations are essential when projects are vast and complicated, and they're usually supported by equally elaborate computer apps. In this module, many of those elaborations are ignored. The emphasis will be on understanding basic principles. If a manager remembers those, then he or she will recognize situations in which PERT-CPM might be useful. Following that recognition, the manager will then go to the Web; either to review the PERT-CPM procedures or, more likely, to find and hire a consultant.
There are two big questions that PERT-CPM answers. The first is about task length: How long is something going to take, or analogously, how much is it going to cost? That's answered by PERT. The second is about project length: Given a series of interrelated tasks, how long will it take to get everything done? That's answered by CPM.
1. Based on the (expected) times, what's the critical path?
2. What's the length of the critical path?
3. The first task on the critical path slips by one day. Which, if any, task(s) should be crashed, to get the project back on schedule?
Complete the third round of a three-round Delphi decision-making exercise, following the detailed example cited in the Home Page discussion. As before, you may copy and/or adapt verbiage from the example without citing it.
The SLP writeup should consist of:
The Letters to the Participants, which include
- Thanks for their participation
- A summary of their second-round responses
- An invitation to submit the third round of responses, modified in light of what has been said so far.