| Course | BUSI 419 Management of Quality Improvement and Outcomes (BUSI419) |
|---|---|
| Module/Week | 4 |
| Assignment | PERT Chart |
| Paper type | PERT chart with schedule analysis |
| Length | about 611 words, 2 double-spaced pages plus title page and references. Course guide: a PERT chart built in Excel from the activity information provided, showing expected times, the network of activities and the critical path |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| Points | 150 |
| School | Liberty University Online |
| Program | BS in Healthcare Administration |
| Where it sits | Module/Week 4 in Liberty's published BUSI 419 course guide; current sections can differ |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for BUSI 419 Week 4
PERT Chart for a Bar-Code Medication Administration Rollout on Two Medical Units
[Student Name]
School of Business, Liberty University
BUSI 419: Management of Quality Improvement and Outcomes
PERT Chart
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
The course supplies its own activity data; this sample uses a composite project with invented time estimates to show the method, while the textbook and peer-reviewed sources cited are real.
PERT Chart for a Bar-Code Medication Administration Rollout on Two Medical Units
Project and Deadline
The project is the rollout of bar-code medication administration on two medical units, in which a nurse checks every dose against the patient's identity band with a handheld scanner before it is given. The safety case is strong. In a before-and-after study at an academic medical center, Poon et al. (2010) found that nontiming administration errors fell from 11.5% of administrations on units without the bar-code system to 6.8% on units with it, a relative reduction of 41.4%. The board has asked for both units to be live within 22 weeks. Lighter (2011) recommends formal project management tools for improvement work of this size, since many tasks depend on others and some can run at the same time. Yong et al. (2026) found that applying structured project management to a hospital sterile supply department's labeling work raised staff compliance and cut assembly defects from 16 cases to two, which suggests the discipline pays off in quality as well as in schedule.
Activity Data
Times are in weeks. Expected time equals (a + 4m + b) / 6. Variance is found by taking the pessimistic estimate minus the optimistic one, dividing by six and squaring the result.
| Activity | Description | Predecessor | a | m | b | Expected | Variance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | Form project team and charter | None | 1 | 2 | 3 | 2.00 | 0.11 |
| B | Map current medication workflow | A | 2 | 3 | 6 | 3.33 | 0.44 |
| C | Select scanners and finalize vendor plan | A | 3 | 4 | 8 | 4.50 | 0.69 |
| D | Configure EHR and drug library | C | 4 | 6 | 10 | 6.33 | 1.00 |
| E | Purchase and install hardware | C | 2 | 3 | 5 | 3.17 | 0.25 |
| F | Write policy and procedures | B | 1 | 2 | 4 | 2.17 | 0.25 |
| G | Train nursing and pharmacy staff | D, F | 2 | 3 | 4 | 3.00 | 0.11 |
| H | Pilot on first unit | E, G | 2 | 2 | 3 | 2.17 | 0.03 |
| I | Evaluate pilot and go live on second unit | H | 1 | 2 | 3 | 2.00 | 0.11 |
Network and Critical Path
Three paths run from the start of the project to its end. The longest determines the expected completion time.
| Path | Activities | Expected length (weeks) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | A, C, D, G, H, I | 20.00 |
| 2 | A, B, F, G, H, I | 14.67 |
| 3 | A, C, E, H, I | 13.83 |
The critical path is A, C, D, G, H and I, with an expected length of 20 weeks. Path 2 runs through the workflow and policy tasks and finishes more than five weeks earlier, while path 3, through hardware, finishes about six weeks earlier, so neither is likely to become critical unless its estimates prove badly wrong. The forward and backward passes below confirm the result, since those six activities have no slack.
| Activity | Early start | Early finish | Late start | Late finish | Slack |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | 0.00 | 2.00 | 0.00 | 2.00 | 0.00 |
| B | 2.00 | 5.33 | 7.33 | 10.67 | 5.33 |
| C | 2.00 | 6.50 | 2.00 | 6.50 | 0.00 |
| D | 6.50 | 12.83 | 6.50 | 12.83 | 0.00 |
| E | 6.50 | 9.67 | 12.67 | 15.83 | 6.17 |
| F | 5.33 | 7.50 | 10.67 | 12.83 | 5.33 |
| G | 12.83 | 15.83 | 12.83 | 15.83 | 0.00 |
| H | 15.83 | 18.00 | 15.83 | 18.00 | 0.00 |
| I | 18.00 | 20.00 | 18.00 | 20.00 | 0.00 |
Building the Chart in Excel
In the workbook, each activity occupies one row, with columns for the three estimates and formula cells for the expected time and variance, so that changing any estimate recalculates everything downstream. Early start for each activity is a MAX formula over the early finish times of its predecessors, and early finish adds the expected time. Late finish is a MIN formula over the late start times of each successor, working backward from the project's end, and slack is late start minus early start. Conditional formatting shades every activity with zero slack, which makes the critical path visible at a glance. The network diagram itself is drawn with linked shapes on a second sheet, each box showing the activity letter, expected time and slack.
Probability of Meeting the Deadline
The variances of the critical activities sum to about 2.06, giving a standard deviation of about 1.43 weeks. The deadline of 22 weeks is 2 weeks beyond the expected 20, or about 1.40 standard deviations, which corresponds to a probability of roughly 92% of finishing on time. The chance of finishing within 20 weeks is only about 50%, so promising the board 20 weeks would be unwise.
What the Chart Means for Managers
The chart shows where attention belongs. Configuring the record system and drug library is both the longest activity and the most uncertain, so it deserves weekly check-ins with the vendor and pharmacy. Mapping the workflow and writing policy have more than five weeks of slack, which means those staff could help with configuration testing if needed, and hardware has more than six. If configuration slips by two weeks, the whole project slips by two weeks, but a two-week delay in hardware delivery would change nothing. The critical path tells a manager which delays the project cannot absorb and which it can. Proverbs advises preparing the work in the field before building the house (English Standard Version Bible, 2001/2016, Proverbs 24:27), which is what a PERT chart does on paper before a single scanner is installed.
References
English Standard Version Bible. (2016). Crossway. (Original work published 2001)
Lighter, D. E. (2011). Advanced performance improvement in health care: Principles and methods. Jones and Bartlett Publishers.
Poon, E. G., Keohane, C. A., Yoon, C. S., Ditmore, M., Bane, A., Levtzion-Korach, O., Moniz, T., Rothschild, J. M., Kachalia, A. B., Hayes, J., Churchill, W. W., Lipsitz, S., Whittemore, A. D., Bates, D. W., & Gandhi, T. K. (2010). Effect of bar-code technology on the safety of medication administration. New England Journal of Medicine, 362(18), 1698-1707. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMsa0907115
Yong, T., Yi, L., Pan, W., Yuan, C., Zhao, X., & Zhang, J. (2026). Effects of project management in labeling standardization for new reusable medical device packages: A retrospective study. Journal of International Medical Research, 54(5), 03000605261444817. https://doi.org/10.1177/03000605261444817
What the BUSI 419 Week 4 instructions ask
Module/Week 4 of BUSI 419 carries the course's first large project. Alongside chapter 3 of Lighter, a presentation, four websites and Forum 4, students turn a list of activities, predecessors and time estimates supplied by the course into a PERT chart built in Excel. The workbook should show each expected time, the network linking the activities and the critical path, and many students add a short written explanation of what the chart means for the project. At 150 points, the chart ties with the later position paper as one of the two heaviest assignments in the course, so every calculation deserves a second check.
How this BUSI 419 Week 4 example is built
Because the course provides its own data, this sample works through a composite project instead, so the method can be followed step by step. It describes the project and its deadline, lists each activity with its predecessors and three time estimates and calculates expected times and variances. A second table shows the paths through the network and their lengths, and a third shows early and late start and finish times with slack for each activity. The paper then estimates the probability of finishing by the deadline and closes with what the chart tells a manager about where to watch closely and where there is room to adjust. A proverb about preparing the field before building frames the planning.
BUSI 419 Week 4 grading rubric: where the points go
PERT assignments are generally graded on correct expected times for every activity, an accurate network that respects every predecessor, the right critical path and its length and a chart that is clear and labeled. Faculty often find small arithmetic errors in the expected times that carry through to the wrong critical path, so checking each formula matters. Students who explain slack and what the critical path means for managing the project show that they understand the tool, not only the arithmetic. A tidy Excel layout, with formulas visible rather than typed values, makes the work easy to verify, and a labeled network diagram helps a grader follow the logic quickly.
BUSI 419 Week 4 help: mistakes that cost points
Enter the activity data exactly as given, then compute each expected time by weighting the most likely estimate four times, adding the two outer estimates and dividing the total by six. Build the network from the predecessor list before calculating anything else, and sketch it by hand first if that helps. Do a forward pass for early start and finish, then a backward pass for late start and finish, and subtract to find slack; the chain of tasks with no slack at all is the one that sets the finish date. Use Excel formulas so that a change in one estimate updates the whole chart. Check that the longest path matches the latest finish time, and that every other task shows positive slack.
Related BUSI 419 sample papers
Other BUSI 419 weeks
- BUSI 419 Week 1: Discussion Board Forum 1
- BUSI 419 Week 2: Discussion Board Forum 2
- BUSI 419 Week 3: Discussion Board Forum 3
- BUSI 419 Week 5: Discussion Board Forum 5
- BUSI 419 Week 6: Discussion Board Forum 6
- BUSI 419 Week 7: Position Paper
- BUSI 419 Week 8: Discussion Board Forum 8
More BS in Healthcare Administration sample papers
- BUSI 311 Week 4: Discussion Board Forum 4
- BUSI 323 Week 1: Group Discussion Board Forum 1
- BUSI 344 Week 4: Discussion Board Forum 4
- BUSI 418 Week 4: Discussion Board Forum 5
BUSI 419 Week 4 questions, answered
What is the BUSI 419 PERT Chart assignment?
Worth 150 points and due in the fourth module, it asks students to build a PERT chart in Excel from activity data the course provides, then calculate expected times and find the critical path.
Where can I find a free BUSI 419 Week 4 sample paper?
This page works through a full BUSI 419 Week 4 PERT chart for a bar-code medication rollout, with activity estimates, paths, slack and a completion probability.
How do you calculate expected time in PERT?
Multiply the most likely estimate by four, add the optimistic and pessimistic estimates, then divide by six; for variance, subtract optimistic from pessimistic, divide by six and square it.
What is the critical path in a PERT chart?
The longest path through the network, made of activities with zero slack; any delay to one of those activities delays the whole project unless time is recovered elsewhere.
What else is due in BUSI 419 Module/Week 4?
Discussion Board Forum 4, worth 50 points and based on chapter 3 of Lighter, is due in the same module/week as the PERT chart.
Use it as a model, or ask for your own
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