Project Management - PERT/CPM

What is PERT?

• Full Form: Program Evaluation and Review Technique
• Developed: In 1958 by the U.S. Navy for the Polaris submarine missile program.
• Purpose: To manage projects with high uncertainty in activity durations-ideal for first-time or innovative projects (e.g., launching a new digital archive or implementing an unfamiliar library management system).
• Key Feature: Uses three time estimates for each activity to account for unpredictability:
  • Optimistic time (best-case scenario)
  • Most likely time (realistic estimate)
  • Pessimistic time (worst-case scenario)
• Outcome: Provides a probabilistic estimate of the total project duration and the likelihood of meeting deadlines.

Relevance to Librarians: Useful when planning experimental or grant-funded projects where timelines are uncertain (e.g., community outreach pilots, digitization of rare collections).

What is CPM?

• Full Form: Critical Path Method
• Developed: In 1957 by DuPont and Remington Rand for industrial plant maintenance.
• Purpose: To manage well-defined, repetitive projects with known activity durations.
• Key Feature: Focuses on identifying the critical path-the sequence of activities that determines the shortest possible project duration.
• Emphasis: On time-cost trade-offs (e.g., "crashing" a project by adding staff to meet a deadline).

Relevance to Librarians: Applicable to routine but complex projects like migrating to a new Integrated Library System (ILS), relocating collections, or conducting large-scale weeding-where tasks and durations are predictable.