Talk:Program evaluation and review technique

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 85.152.85.71 (talk) at 11:07, 1 October 2010 (Lead time). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Latest comment: 15 years ago by Wakelamp in topic Who invented Pert

Two of a kind

There are two kinds of PERT diagrams. One is the sort shown in the article, which has nodes denoting stages of the project and arrows denoting tasks. The other sort, which I did at college, has nodes denoting tasks and arrows denoting the dependencies between them. The nodes tend to be shown as boxes with task information in them - there are various formats, one of which is like this

14 3 17
Do something
19 5 22

where the boxes are

early start duration early finish
Task description
late start slack late finish

(I'm not sure if the "early finish" and "late start" boxes were this or the other way round.) -- Smjg 16:14, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[PDG] My long standing question is WHY are the early start and early finish dates invariably shown ABOVE the late start and late finish dates, when in fact, this makes no sense mathematically as we are supposed to DEDUCT the early dates FROM the late dates, resulting in the Total Float (or Total Slack) Thus what is shown here is logically exactly opposite and thus counterintuitive to what should be.

BR, Dr. PDG, Jakarta Dr PDG (talk) 08:38, 27 October 2008 (UTC)Reply

Lead time

I always thought that one of the major, long-term contributions of PERT for those estimating completion times for complex tasks involving the interaction of many different tasks of many different types from many different sources was the concept of lead time.

The Wiki-article Lead time makes no mention of PERT as the term's point of origin.

Also, it seems very puzzling to me that most are speaking of lead time as if it means "the time taken to produce some manufactured article"; where, according to how I always understood its meaning, application, and implication was that the "lead time" for a particular event was the amount of time before a specific point in time that one would have to commence the activities that would generate the event in question by that designated "point in time".

Thus, the "lead time" means something very significant, and something rather like "the time one commence activity in advance of an event in order for the event to occur at X point in time".

Therefore, it does not (and can not) mean what seems to to be an identical, polar-opposite meaning -- which is very different, entirely wrong, utterly misrepresenting, and totally bereft of the wonderful utility of the term's correct application -- that we see in much of the usages: i.e., something like "the earliest time in the future that an event can occur if we start now" (rather than the correct version, "the latest we can start work, so that we will have the product in our hands on date D at time T).

I feel that there should be:3 232

(a) some significant piece about "lead time" in the PERT article; and
(b) once that is settled, appropriate changes also made to the Lead time article.

Although I may have my wires crossed, I have always thought that "lead time" was the amount of time that had to "lead" or come before the event (and that this was why it was used in the planning and setting up events and processes so that they would finish by a particular date, such as the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games); rather than it being the amount of time beyond this moment that we could expect a finished product to turn up. Can anyone clarify this for me? Lindsay658 04:22, 17 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

Dbsheajr. I hope that what I have added assists. Please feel free to alter it in any way that better suits what you are adding to the remainder. Best to you Lindsay658 05:08, 25 July 2006

The figure seems to be a color-ized version of diagram shown at NetMBA, but with the NetMBA logo removed.

http://www.netmba.com/operations/project/pert/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by Joelwest (talkcontribs) 03:03, 11 March 2009 (UTC)Reply

Except that they're completely different? What am I missing? Kuru talk 03:16, 11 March 2009 (UTC)Reply

PERT and its Origin - Mary Poppendieck's take on the matter at a Google Tech Talk in '08

Have a look at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypEMdjslEOI and have Mary Poppendieck, at a Google Tech Talk, amongst other things tell you about the origins of PERT (starting at 25:14) as a smoke screen for congress to keep funding the cold war weapons program (it is easier to fund a control strategy than people doing something). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.132.94.115 (talk) 17:22, 30 May 2009 (UTC)Reply

Uncertainty in project scheduling

What does this phrase mean "include safety in the baseline schedule"? Are we talking about padding estimates? Please define "safety" in reference to a schedule.

What is a "a very large make-span"? Is that a typo for "time-span"? Is make-span a term of art in PERT lingo?

These two terms are unfamiliar to me, and I've worked with PERT charts and project management. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.19.105.40 (talk) 16:53, 11 December 2009 (UTC)Reply

Who invented Pert

A citiation is needed on the inventors, I found this citation, but I have no access to the article to confirm PERT as an Analytical Aid for Program Planning—Its Payoff and Problems J. W. Pocock Booz Allen Applied Research, Inc., Chicago, Illinois Wakelamp (talk) 06:13, 16 April 2010 (UTC)Reply