A PERT Answer

Have you ever been involved in a project where it seems like there are a million things to do and they all depend on one another? You and your friends might have organized a big dinner party. Or perhaps a team research project was assigned in your history class: each of the team members had to do some independent library research and interviewing, but then the class presentation was planned as a group, and the whole project had to come together on schedule.

Situations like this are probably even more common in the "real world" that you encounter after you get out of school. Just think of all the interrelated tasks that go into making a music video, planning an advertising campaign, or starting a new restaurant. Finding the most efficient way to proceed can seem almost impossible. Is there any good way to organize and plan?

Mathematics has an answer: a PERT answer. "PERT" stands for "Project Evaluation and Review Technique." It's a method that was developed in the 1950s to deal with the planning and control of large projects.

The PERT method can help you see the structure underlying your interrelated tasks, set realistic deadlines, and identify "bottleneck" activities that must be kept on schedule to avoid delaying the whole project. You can also use PERT to help evaluate the effect of changes in your project plan.

Great, you say (thinking of that research project in your history class). But how does it work?