ABSTRACT

As we’ve seen, in the real world some attempt is often made to add safety to each task, so that the start time of each subsequent task can be maintained. This isn’t usually realistic, because customers won’t stand for the delivery times that result. On the other hand, if average task durations are specified everywhere and no buffers are put in place, it’s guaranteed that projects will be late. It seems like a catch-22: if you pad tasks, you don’t get work, and short-term profit suffers; if you don’t pad tasks, projects will be late and longterm profit suffers.