Project Management

Network-Planning Models
PERT
 PERT
• PERT is used to plan projects with uncertain time estimates.
• Instead of a single time estimate, three time estimates are used:
• Minimum – Optimistic Time - a
• Maximum – Pessimistic Time - b
• Most likely – Most Likely Time – m

• It s assumed that the time estimates follow a Beta distribution

• Beta distribution is unimodal (has a single peak value)
• Has finite and nonnegative end points, and is not necessarily symmetrical
• The choice of Beta distribution is not based on empirical data, since most
activities in development projects occur just once, frequency distributions
of such activity times cannot be developed from past data
• The optimistic and the pessimistic activity times are about equally likely to
occur
• The most likely activity time is four times more likely to occur than either
of the other two.
• Optimistic Time:
• The minimum reasonable period of time in which the activity can be
completed.
• Most Likely Time:
• The best guess of the time required. Since this would be the time
thought most likely to appear, it is also the mode of the Beta
distribution.
• Pessimistic time
• The maximum reasonable period of time the activity would take to be
completed .
•  After identifying the activities to be done in the project, determine
the sequence of activities and construct a network reflecting the
precedence relationships.
• Use the three estimates of the activity times a, m and b to compute
the Expected Time (ET) and the variance () of the activity times.
• Determine the ES, EF, LS, LF and the critical path using the weighted
average time ET for each activity.
• Determine the probability of completing the project on a given date
using the standard normal distribution.
• Sum the variance values of activities on the critical path to determine
the variance of the duration of the critical path.
• D= Desired completion date for the project

• TE =Expected completion time for the project

• Calculate the value of Z , which is the number of standard deviations
(of a standard normal distribution ) that the project due date is from
the expected completion time.
 D – TE

Z = ---------------------

√
A project has the following activities and time estimates for these
activities.
Time estimates (Weeks)
Activity a m b Immediate
predecessor

A 1 4 7 -
B 2 6 7 A
C 3 4 6 D
D 6 12 14 A
E 3 6 12 D
F 6 8 16 B,C
G 1 5 6 E,F
• Calculate the expected time and variance for each activity.
• Draw the critical path diagram
• Show the early start, early finish, late start and late finish times
• Show the critical path
• What is the probability that the project can be completed in 34
weeks?
Activity Expected time Activity variance
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
• Compute ES,EF,LS,LF for all activities
• Find out the critical path
• Find out the length of the critical path
• Compute the sum of variances of activities on the critical path.
• Compute the value of Z
• Find out the probability of completing it by the given time.