SCHEDULING WITH

UNCERTAIN DURATION

RAMESH.J
AC15UAR071
• Unfortunately, activity durations are estimates of the actual time
required, and there is liable to be a significant amount of
uncertainty associated with the actual durations.
• During the preliminary planning stages for a project, the
uncertainty in activity durations is particularly large since the scope
and obstacles to the project are still undefined. Activities that are
outside of the control of the owner are likely to be more uncertain.
• For example, the time required to gain regulatory approval for
projects may vary tremendously.
• Other external events such as adverse weather, trench collapses,
or labor strikes make duration estimates particularly uncertain.
• Two simple approaches to dealing with the uncertainty in activity durations warrant some discussion
before introducing more formal scheduling procedures to deal with uncertainty.
• First, the uncertainty in activity durations may simply be ignored and scheduling done using the
expected or most likely time duration for each activity. Since only one duration estimate needs to be
made for each activity, this approach reduces the required work in setting up the original schedule.
• Formal methods of introducing uncertainty into the scheduling process require more work and
assumptions.
• While this simple approach might be defended, it has two drawbacks. First, the use of expected activity
durations typically results in overly optimistic schedules for completion; a numerical example of this
optimism appears below.
• Second, the use of single activity durations often produces a rigid, inflexible mindset on the part of
schedulers. As field managers appreciate, activity durations vary considerable and can be influenced by
good leadership and close attention.
• As a result, field managers may loose confidence in the realism of a schedule based upon fixed activity
durations.
• Clearly, the use of fixed activity durations in setting up a schedule makes a continual process of
monitoring and updating the schedule in light of actual experience imperative.
• Otherwise, the project schedule is rapidly outdated.
• A second simple approach to incorporation uncertainty also deserves mention. Many managers recognize that the use
of expected durations may result in overly optimistic schedules, so they include a contingency allowance in their
estimate of activity durations.
• For example, an activity with an expected duration of two days might be scheduled for a period of 2.2 days, including
a ten percent contingency. Systematic application of this contingency would result in a ten percent increase in the
expected time to complete the project.
• While the use of this rule-of-thumb or heuristic contingency factor can result in more accurate schedules, it is likely
that formal scheduling methods that incorporate uncertainty more formally are useful as a means of obtaining greater
accuracy or in understanding the effects of activity delays
• The most common formal approach to incorporate uncertainty in the scheduling process is to apply the critical path
scheduling process (as described in Section 2.3) and then analyze the results from a probabilistic perspective. This
process is usually referred to as the PERT scheduling or evaluation method.
• As noted earlier, the duration of the critical path represents the minimum time required to complete the project. Using
expected activity durations and critical path scheduling, a critical path of activities can be identified.
• This critical path is then used to analyze the duration of the project incorporating the uncertainty of the activity
durations along the critical path.
• The expected project duration is equal to the sum of the expected durations of the activities along the critical path.
Assuming that activity durations are independent random variables, the variance or variation in the duration of this
critical path is calculated as the sum of the variances along the critical path.
• With the mean and variance of the identified critical path known, the distribution of activity durations can also be
computed.
• While the PERT method has been made widely available, it suffers from three major problems.
• First, the procedure focuses upon a single critical path, when many paths might become critical
due to random fluctuations. For example, suppose that the critical path with longest expected time
happened to be completed early.
• Unfortunately, this does not necessarily mean that the project is completed early since another path
or sequence of activities might take longer. Similarly, a longer than expected duration for an
activity not on the critical path might result in that activity suddenly becoming critical.
• As a result of the focus on only a single path, the PERT method typically underestimates the actual
project duration.
• As a second problem with the PERT procedure, it is incorrect to assume that most construction
activity durations are independent random variables.
• In practice, durations are correlated with one another.
• For example, if problems are encountered in the delivery of concrete for a project, this problem is
likely to influence the expected duration of numerous activities involving concrete pours on a
project.
• Positive correlations of this type between activity durations imply that the PERT method
underestimates the variance of the critical path and thereby produces over-optimistic expectations
of the probability of meeting a particular project completion deadline.
• Finally, the PERT method requires three duration estimates for each activity rather than the single
estimate developed for critical path scheduling.
• Thus, the difficulty and labor of estimating activity characteristics is multiplied threefold.
• As an alternative to the PERT procedure, a straightforward method of obtaining information about
the distribution of project completion times (as well as other schedule information) is through the
use of Monte Carlo simulation.
• This technique calculates sets of artificial (but realistic) activity duration times and then applies a
deterministic scheduling procedure to each set of durations.
• Numerous calculations are required in this process since simulated activity durations must be
calculated and the scheduling procedure applied many times.
• For realistic project networks, 40 to 1,000 separate sets of activity durations might be used in a
single scheduling simulation.
• The calculations associated with Monte Carlo simulation are described in the following section.
 Another approach to the simulation of different activity durations is to develop specific scenarios of events
and determine the effect on the overall project schedule. This is a type of "what-if" problem solving in which a
manager simulates events that might occur and sees the result. For example, the effects of different weather
patterns on activity durations could be estimated and the resulting schedules for the different weather patterns
compared. One method of obtaining information about the range of possible schedules is to apply the scheduling
procedure using all optimistic, all most likely, and then all pessimistic activity durations. The result is three

project schedules representing a range of possible outcomes. This process of "what-if" analysis is similar to that
undertaken during the process of construction planning or during analysis of project crashing.