Structure:
Introduction: Define the tools Critical Path Method and PERT and the procedures used in them to evaluate the progress of project.
Body: List out the points specifying advantages of PERT and CPM.
Conclusion: Importance of PERT and CPM in evaluation and monitoring of Projects and Programs and how this kind of evaluation helps in effective utilization of time and resources .
Supporting points:
Background : Critical Path Method ( CPM ) was developed by engineers of the Du Pont Company in 1950’s for its application in all scheduling work, construction projects, research and development programs and in many other situations that require estimates of time and performance. CPM calls for dividing a program or a project into its elementary parts in their chronological order of sequence.
By breaking a project into its interconnecting parts the CPM technique is helpful in finding out the more strategic elements of the plan for the purpose of better designing, planning, coordinating and controlling the entire project.
The Program evaluation and review technique is a sophisticated version of the network technique comprising a larger number of events and activities. PERT has refined CPM in 2 respects PERT has adopted statistical method for estimating the time required for each activity and the PERT system can even be applied to new projects for which no past experience is available.
Advantages of CPM in effective office Management
- It focuses attention on the timely completion of the whole project or even on shortening its time span by several means.
- It permits to place special emphasis on each activity for securing its improvement by way of putting greater resources, changing the technology or adopting other methods. Briefly results in optimum utilization of resources.
- It enables managers to make advance planning for all activities.
- Because of concentrated thinking and attention on each activity of the project rather than on the whole, it improves quality of planning, organizing and controlling in number of ways.
Advantages of PERT in effective office Management
- It compels managers to make advance planning for fitting the relevant parts into an integrated whole.
- As it encompasses a number of events and activities at different levels of the organization, it calls for systematic planning all down the line.
- It is instrumental for concentrating attention on critical or strategic elements that may need any correction or modification.
- It requires a system of forward looking control with a view to completing sequential events and activities in proper time.
- It fosters all round co ordination by the way of looking into the time, quantity and direction dimensions of co ordination.
Though both the methods of CPM and PERT are limited with respect to evaluation of routine planning for recurring events, both exhibit a great improvement in the sphere of techniques of administrative improvements by using modern methods of computational analysis and mathematical models.
