Dictionary of Accounting Terms: expected time for an activity
expected time for an activity
in Program Evaluation And Review Technique (PERT), a weighted average time that is widely used in a real life application of PERT to a complex project, where the completion times for activities are not certain. First, estimate three possible duration times for each activity: an optimistic, a most likely, and a pessimistic time. A weighted average of these three time estimates is then calculated to establish the expected timefor the activity. The formula applies to a weight of one to both the optimistic and the pessimistic estimates and a weight of four to the most likely estimate.
