A story I've heard several times over the years is that '''Pert''' was devised during the construction of the Polaris submarine not as a tool for managing the project, but as tool for distracting attention away from the project. By giving government oversight bureaucrats a big chart with lots of boxes that needed to be kept up-to-date, the bureaucrats where keep out of the way of the people who were doing the real work. 

Urban Legend? -- DaveSmith