PERT: a tool for better lab planning.

The Program Evaluation and Review Technique was developed by the U.S. Navy in 1958. As a planning tool, it enables management to visualize any complicated task as a series of well-defined events. By estimating the time necessary to progress from one event to the next, planners can delineate a pathway of "critical events" and thus conserve personnel and technical resources. Here is a demonstration of how this management control technique could be used in a laboratory setting.