PERT case studies
PERT · Put your knowledge to work in context.
PERT - the Program Evaluation and Review Technique - is a project scheduling method rather than a single issuing body's certification. It is taught and assessed inside project management, operations, engineering, and construction curricula, and many employers and training providers offer their own PERT-based exams. The PERT case studies are 5 cases and about 4,537 words.
1The 118-Day Schedule Nobody Believes
A PM leads a 46-activity data-center migration. The schedule file contains four notable features: 'Final QA' has no successor at all; 'Permit approval' carries a hard constraint date of 15 May; 'Rework' is linked finish-to-start from 'Review', while 'Review' is linked finish-to-start from 'Rework'; and three design tasks that the team insists will overlap by 5 days each are modeled as strictly sequential.
840 words, about 4 min2The Vendor API Estimate and the 'Worst Case' Date
Activity 'Integrate vendor API' has three-point inputs: optimistic 2 days (SDK works on first attempt), most likely 5 days (one round of credential debugging), pessimistic 14 days (the vendor's sandbox lacks a required endpoint and a workaround must be hand-built). It is the long-lead item on a 9-activity path.
929 words, about 5 min3Negative Float, Zero Float, and the Wrong Activity Being Frozen
A five-activity network has two paths: A (5 days) → B (4 days) → D (3 days) = 12 days, and A (5 days) → C (6 days) → D (3 days) = 14 days. The customer imposes a finish date of day 12 for contractual reasons.
916 words, about 5 min4Two Merging Paths and the 93% That Wasn't
A schedule has two paths converging on a single finish milestone. Both paths share the same initial activity, A (5 days, low variance).
949 words, about 5 min5The Analyst Who Added Standard Deviations
A critical path has five sequential activities, each independently estimated with a standard deviation of 2 days. Expected path duration is 50 days and the sponsor's target is day 55.
903 words, about 5 min