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The program (or project) evaluation and review technique (PERT) is a statistical tool used in project management, which was designed to analyze and represent the tasks involved in completing a given project.

First developed by the United States Navy in 1958, it is commonly used in conjunction with the critical path method (CPM) that was introduced in 1957.

Overview

PERT is a method of analyzing the tasks involved in completing a given project, especially the time needed to complete each task, and to identify the minimum time needed to complete the total project. It incorporates 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 those projects where time is the major factor rather than cost. It is applied on very large-scale, one-time, complex, non-routine infrastructure and on Research and Development projects.

PERT offers a management tool, which relies “on arrow and node diagrams of activities and events: arrows represent the activities or work necessary to reach the events or nodes that indicate each completed phase of the total project.”^[1]

PERT and CPM are complementary tools, because “CPM employs one time estimation and one cost estimation for each activity; PERT may utilize three time estimates (optimistic, expected, and pessimistic) and no costs for each activity. Although these are distinct differences, the term PERT is applied increasingly to all critical path scheduling.”^[1]

History

“PERT” was developed primarily to simplify the planning and scheduling of large and complex projects. It was developed for the U.S. Navy Special Projects Office in 1957 to support the U.S. Navy’s Polaris nuclear submarine project.^[2] It found applications all over industry. An early example was it was used for the 1968 Winter Olympics in Grenoble which applied PERT from 1965 until the opening of the 1968 Games.^[3] This project model was the first of its kind, a revival for scientific management, founded by Frederick Taylor (Taylorism) and later refined by Henry Ford (Fordism). DuPont‘s critical path method was invented at roughly the same time as PERT.PERT Summary Report Phase 2, 1958

Initially PERT stood for Program Evaluation Research Task, but by 1959 was already renamed.^[2] It had been made public in 1958 in two publications of the U.S. Department of the Navy, entitled Program Evaluation Research Task, Summary Report, Phase 1.^[4] and Phase 2.^[5] In a 1959 article in The American Statistician the main Willard Fazar, Head of the Program Evaluation Branch, Special Projects Office, U.S. Navy, gave a detailed description of the main concepts of the PERT. He explained:

Through an electronic computer, the PERT technique processes data representing the major, finite accomplishments (events) essential to achieve end-objectives; the inter-dependence of those events; and estimates of time and range of time necessary to complete each activity between two successive events. Such time expectations include estimates of “most likely time”, “optimistic time”, and “pessimistic time” for each activity. The technique is a management control tool that sizes up the outlook for meeting objectives on time; highlights danger signals requiring management decisions; reveals and defines both methodicalness and slack in the flow plan or the network of sequential activities that must be performed to meet objectives; compares current expectations with scheduled completion dates and computes the probability for meeting scheduled dates; and simulates the effects of options for decision — before decision.
The concept of PERT was developed by an operations research team staffed with representatives from the Operations Research Department of Booz Allen Hamilton; the Evaluation Office of the Lockheed Missile Systems Division; and the Program Evaluation Branch, Special Projects Office, of the Department of the Navy.^[6]

PERT Guide for management use, June 1963

Ten years after the introduction of PERT in 1958 the American librarian Maribeth Brennan published a selected bibliography with about 150 publications on PERT and CPM, which had been published between 1958 and 1968. The origin and development was summarized as follows:

PERT originated in 1958 with the … Polaris missile design and construction scheduling. Since that time, it has been used extensively not only by the aerospace industry but also in many situations where management desires to achieve an objective or complete a task within a scheduled time and cost expenditure; it came into popularity when the algorithm for calculating a maximum value path was conceived. PERT and CPM may be calculated manually or with a computer, but usually they require major computer support for detailed projects. A number of colleges and universities now offer instructional courses in both.^[1]

For the subdivision of work units in PERT^[7] another tool was developed: the Work Breakdown Structure. The Work Breakdown Structure provides “a framework for complete networking, the Work Breakdown Structure was formally introduced as the first item of analysis in carrying out basic PERT/COST.”^[8]

More at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Program_evaluation_and_review_technique