Project Management in Practice ISV

Fourth Edition
5-1

Mantel, Meredith, Shafer, and Sutton

Prepared by
Scott M. Shafer,
Updated by
William E. Matthews and
Thomas G. Roberts,
William Paterson University

John Wiley and Sons, Inc.

Copyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

PERT and CPM

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Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT)

U.S. Navy, Booz-Allen Hamilton, and Lockheed Aircraft

probabilistic activity durations

Critical Path Method (CPM)

Dupont De Nemours Inc.

deterministic activity durations

Copyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

The Language of PERT/CPM

5-3

Activity

a task or set of tasks

uses resources and time

Event

an identifiable state resulting from completion of one or more

activities
consumes no resources or time
predecessor activities must be completed

Copyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

The Language of PERT/CPM continued

5-4

Milestones

identifiable and noteworthy events that mark significant

progress

Network

a diagram of nodes (activities or events) and arrows

(directional arcs) that illustrate the technological
relationships of activities

Path

a series of connected activities between two events

Copyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

The Language of PERT/CPM concluded

5-5

Critical Path

the set of activities on a path (from the projects start event to

its finish event) that, if delayed, will delay the completion date
of the project

Critical Time

the time required to complete all activities on the critical path

Copyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Building the Network

5-6

There are two ways of displaying a project

network
Activities on Arrows (AOA) network in which the activities

are shown as arrows and events as nodes

Activities on Nodes (AON) network in which each task is
shown as a node and the technological relationship is shown by
the arrows

Copyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

AOA Network Stage 1

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AOA network Stage 2

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AOA Network - Complete

5-9

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AON Network Stage 1

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AON Network - Stage 2

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AON Network - Complete

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Information Contents in an AON Node

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ES

Activity
name

EF

Activity
duration

LS

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LF

ES - Earliest start time

EF - Earliest finish time
LS - Latest start time
LF - Latest finish time

Calculating Activity Slack

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Latest Start Time (LS) Earliest Start Time (ES) =

Slack
Latest Finish time (LF) Earliest Finish time (EF) =
Slack

Copyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Gantt Chart of a Sample Project

5-15

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Gantt Chart of Sample Project Showing Critical Path, Path

Connections, Slack, ES, LS, EF, and LF
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Copyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Extensions to PERT/CPM
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Finish to Start (F to S)
finish of Activity A to start of Activity B

Start to Start (S to S)
start of Activity A to start of Activity B

Finish to Finish (F to F)
finish of Activity A to finish of Activity B

Start to Finish (S to F)
start of Activity A to finish of Activity B

Copyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Summary:
1.Gantt charts were developed and introduced in 1917 by
Charles Gantt. It deals with the sequence of tasks needed to
complete the project; whereas PERT charts were developed and
introduced by the U.S. Navy in 1950 to manage large and
complex projects .
2.Gantt charts focus on the time required to complete a task;
whereas a PERT chart focuses on intertask relationships.
Gantt has linear representations or it is a bar chart; whereas a
PERT chart is a flow chart and has parallel networks of
individual tasks.
3.Gantt charts are straightforward and are not made for projects
which need changes; whereas PERT charts are complex and are
made for small portions of the project.

Copyright
5-19

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