Planning Tools

A Gantt chart shows each task as a block of time and shows:

• how long each task should take,
• the order in which the tasks should be completed,
• dependencies between tasks,
• milestones,
• contingency time.

PERT stands for Project Evaluation and Review Technique.

The PERT chart uses circles, or rectangles, to represent tasks or milestones. The circles or rectangles are sometimes called nodes.

Lines are drawn between these circles to represent dependent tasks and the time allocated to them. Two lines can come out of any event to represent tasks that can be done concurrently. The PERT chart can be used by the project manager to show the critical path.

The critical path is the longest path that the project should take to be completed.  The critical path analyses the tasks that are dependent and works out the time taken to complete all of these.

This path shows the shortest time that a project can be completed in, if all goes to plan.
This is taken from adding up the allocated time for all the dependent, not concurrent, tasks including contingency time. The critical path can be used by the project manager to monitor the project to make sure every task is running to schedule.