Do today’s projects need powerful network planning tools?

Since the 1960s, when network planning tools were ‘invented’, management has been pressed to use the methodologies embedded in the Critical Path Method (CPM) and in the Project Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT). Gradually benefits have been seen and these planning tools are now more widely used. Even so, there can be compelling reasons to use more comprehensive tools in order to model a greater degree of uncertainty than is possible with CPM or PERT. This situation may arise for instance when competition propels a firm into tight time, cost and performance contracts. In this paper a compressed network will be used to illustrate how three planning tools-CPM, PERT and the newer Venture and Evaluation and Review Technique (VERT)-yield different results. So different in fact that it is suggested that the use of CPM and PERT can be very misleading. And used in too cavalier a fashion, these methods may present to management an over-confident prediction of the termination of the project. But the more difficult to use VERT could help unravel many probabilistic and stochastic choices that occur in real networks. Furthermore, this technique can offer a superior estimate of the final turn-around time and cost of the project.