PERT: Part of Your Military DNA!

Jay Hicks is an author, instructor and consultant with over 30 years of business and government planning and leadership. He advises commercial and federal organizations on the planning, development and leadership of project management organizations, delivering viability and value. With a special kinship for military personnel, Jay provides guidance on successful civilian career transition. He is the co-founder of Gr8Transtions4U.com, where advocating the value of hiring military personnel is the key focus.

  Career Development   Estimating  

As described in the recent article “Project Management: Part of Your Military DNA,” the United States military has developed many project management tools and techniques that are widely accepted around the world and in use today.

Recently, I had a discussion about military personnel in transition and my associated books with Rick Morris, radio show host of The Work/Life Balance for VoiceAmerica Talk Radio and the President of R2 Consulting, LLC. I found Rick’s understanding of project management and his enthusiasm for helping transitioning military personnel to be very refreshing.

Rick was very keen about the Polaris Submarine Project and the development of the Project Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) in 1958 by the military. If unfamiliar, PERT enables project managers to analyze the time needed for each project task and then calculate the total time needed to complete a project or program. Using PERT, you can analytically estimate and justify the most likely time required for your project.

Rick explained the value of the PERT to me in terms that I had not thought of before. We both agreed that there are some supervisors who do not desire to hear about estimating the best, worst and most likely case for project time. Instead, these supervisors may want or demand to know a specific date for task or project completion. This is always an awkward …

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