page_title: United States Navy Special Projects Office
section_title: Program Evaluation and Review Technique PERT
hierarchical_section_title: United States Navy Special Projects Office / History / Program Evaluation and Review Technique PERT
caption_attribution_description: English: PERT Summary Report Phase 2, 1958
context_page_description: United States Navy Special Projects Office is a former research and design office of the United States Navy, responsible for the coordination of the development and design of the US Navy Fleet Ballistic Missiles Polaris and Poseidon.
  The Special Projects Office was initiated in 1956 as new organization with a mandate to develop a submarine-launched solid-fuel fleet ballistic missile. The Special Projects Office reported directly to Admiral Arleigh Burke, and the secretary of the Navy, an unprecedented bypass of the Navy bureaus that signalled the Navy's commitment to the FBM concept.
  To direct the Special Projects Office, at John H. Sides' persistent suggestion, Burke selected Sides' former deputy, Rear Admiral William F. Raborn, Jr., whose phenomenal success in that role would earn him renown as the father of Polaris.
  The Special Projects Office is also known for the development of the planning and scheduling methodology, known as Program Evaluation and Review Technique or just PERT, and first published in 1958.
context_section_description: Program Evaluation and Review Technique PERT is developed for the U.S. Navy Special Projects Office in 1957 to support the U.S. Navy's Polaris nuclear submarine project. PERT was developed primarily to simplify the planning and scheduling of large and complex projects, and has found applications all over industry.
  PERT had been made public in 1958 in two publications of the U.S. Department of the Navy, entitled Program Evaluation Research Task, Summary Report, Phase 1.  and Program Evaluation Research Task, Summary Report, Phase 2. In a 1959 article in  The American Statistician Willard Fazar, Head of the Program Evaluation Branch, Special Projects Office, U.S. Navy, gave a detailed description of the development, that led to the Program Evaluation and Review Technique. He explained:
  The Navy's Special Projects Office, charged with developing the Polaris-Submarine weapon system and the Fleet Ballistic Missile capability, has developed a statistical technique for measuring and forecasting progress in research and development programs. This program evaluation and review technique (code-named PERT) is applied as a decision-making tool designed to save time in achieving end-objectives, and is of particular interest to those engaged in research and development programs for which time is a critical factor.
   The new technique takes recognition of three factors that influence successful achievement of research and development program objectives: time, resources, and technical performance specifications. PERT employs time as the variable that reflects planned resource-applications and performance specifications. With units of time as a common denominator, PERT quantifies knowledge about the uncertainties involved in developmental programs requiring effort at the edge of, or beyond, current knowledge of the subject — effort for which little or no previous experience exists.
  For the subdivision of work units in PERT another tool was developed: the Work Breakdown Structure. The Work Breakdown Structure provides "a framework for complete networking, the Work Breakdown Structure was formally introduced as the first item of analysis in carrying out basic PERT/COST."
caption: PERT Summary Report Phase 2, 1958
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