AbstractThe commonly recommended network approach to project monitoring and scheduling can make very useful, detailed contributions to individual projects. However, it has not yet been adequately developed to deal with a large number of projects, particularly where considerable uncertainties are involved. To try to overcome this weakness an attempt has been made to use a project model that is so simple that it can easily be handled in large numbers. Although details of individual projects are lost, considerable benefit can be obtained from analyses of the resulting, collective data. This approach has been used successfully for some time to present project programmes and progress with the work in an engineering development laboratory and is currently being extended to assist with multi‐project schedulin