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Full form of PERT
Yes, PERT is an acronym, same as NASA, PESTLE & RICS. The full form of PERT is Project Evaluation and Review Technique.
Why Project evaluation and review technique (PERT) required?
Everybody has long term and short term goals in their personal and professional life. If anybody needs to achieve each of these goals, it should have five characteristics. As experts say, Goals should be SMART to achieve. SMART means Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound. Projects are also the same. If a project manager needs successful completion of the project, it should,
- executed with an estimated budget
- completed within the predicted time
- achieved expected quality
Unless all the above points were ticked, the project managing team could not claim its successful completion. Yes, in modern-day projects, there will be so many deviations or barriers when planning a project. Clients may change their requirements; sudden price hikes and unavailability of all required details are some of these barriers. Therefore, the project management team should predict and prepare for any deviation or barrier during the execution stage.
There are different types of methods used in the industry to plan and prepare project tasks accordingly. One of the most favourite methods is critical path analysis. The project management team identifies the project programme’s most vital and primary tasks in critical path analysis. And they are establishing dependent tasks of each of these primary tasks. We are going to discuss further more about Critical path analysis in a different article. This article’s main intention is to discuss PERT analysis, which is another famous method used by industry to analyse and plan tasks.
Project evaluation and review technique
The project evaluation and review technique was initially developed in 1950 by US Navy for their weapons development projects. PERT is also very similar to the critical path method since both approaches use predictions of the work programme. But in the Project evaluation and review technique (PERT) project management team uses three possible scenarios for the project timeline. For that Project management team analyse the time requirements for each main task and all other associated tasks. PM team calculate below possible scenarios of each of these tasks,
- The shortest possible timeline to complete the project (Optimistic Timeline)
- The most presumable timeline to complete the project (Most likely timeline)
- The most prolonged timeline to complete the project (Pessimistic timeline)
As shown above, the Project management team analyse the project timeline from worst to good. By doing that, they can predict and prepare for possible exposures during the execution period.
Apart from that project management team can identify crucial resources and materials required for the successful completion of the project. And they can plan the procurement process with less disruption to the project program.
How do you use Program Evaluation and review techniques?
Analysing and note down all tasks and milestones of the project. Highlight each critical task. Sequencing all functions with their back and forth relationships in a network diagram. Analyse and predict time duration for each task with all possible three scenarios (Optimistic, Most likely, Pessimistic timelines). Brainstorm with the Team and conclude the critical path of the project.
The most important thing in implementing PERT is analysing and understanding each task of the project. Segregation of each activity and filter them under correct milestones is also crucial in PERT implementation. And incline them into the correct order mentioning the estimated time frame for each task.
Advantages and disadvantages of project evaluation and review technique
Project evaluation and review technique advantages (PERT)
- Improve resource utilisation and planning
- Provide pre-assessment of certain risks
- Predict and prepare for the worst-case scenario
- Make management easy by dividing the big project into small tasks
Project evaluation and review technique Disadvantages (PERT)
- PERT schedule Researching, Updating and maintaining is difficult
- Time predictions are made based on experience; if prediction goes the wrong project goes wrong