Project planning is essential for ensuring that projects are well-organized and structured, resources are used efficiently, risks are managed proactively, and the project team, as well as all stakeholders, are kept informed and engaged throughout the entire project lifecycle. Effective project planning also provides a repository for all project-related documents, which is crucial for future reference and audits. Additionally, the availability of documents, real-time data, and analytics facilitates informed decision-making for project managers, improving team performance through more efficient adjustments to timelines, resource reallocation, and adaptations to changes in project scope. In summary, project planning is critical to ensure the success of a project. Today, there are numerous tools available to manage the primary challenges related to projects, including technical and human resources, as well as financial resources.

Among project management tools, PERT (Program Evaluation and Review Technique) and CPM (Critical Path Method) stand out as valuable options for planning, scheduling, and controlling complex projects. Both methods aim to identify the most efficient path to project completion and manage the schedule and resources effectively. For this reason, it is particularly beneficial for students in technical fields to learn how to utilize these tools.

In this work, novel methodologies for teaching the core aspects of PERT and CPM are presented. These methodologies focus on practical activities drawn from the students' daily lives. In other words, the students planned and evaluated their personal activities.

To manage their projects, students selected one of the tools. Given that the duration of the activities proposed by the students was largely stochastic, most of them chose PERT. Once the tool was selected, the students were asked to break their projects down into individual tasks and determine the relationships and dependencies among them. After this, one of the most challenging tasks was estimating the optimistic, pessimistic, and most likely time durations for each task. Due to their lack of experience, the students often proposed a wide range of time estimates, which made accuracy difficult. Following this, the students designed the project network, identifying the early and late start times for each task, the critical path, and the total project duration.

From the critical path, the students were asked to identify primary and secondary activities. Using the early and late start times, they were also asked to assess the importance of controlling each task to ensure timely delivery.

After completing this activity, the students were not only able to effectively use the tool they had selected but also gained a deeper understanding of the importance of adhering to timelines—not only for completing the project on time but also for improving their personal productivity.

Keywords: Project management, PERT, CPM, technical degrees.