Learn the schedule. Defend the decision.
A practitioner-built handbook for the people who plan, review, update, and rely on construction schedules—from CPM mechanics to delay analysis.
First-wave field guides
Start with the decision your schedule must support.
Critical path method (CPM)
The calculation behind nearly every construction schedule — and what "critical" actually means.
Read the guide →FoundationTotal float (and free float)
How far an activity can slip before the project finish moves — and why float is where schedules get gamed.
Read the guide →FoundationBaseline schedule
The approved plan every later update is measured against — and the document delay disputes come back to.
Read the guide →FoundationData date
The "as-of" line in a schedule update — everything before it is history, everything after it is forecast.
Read the guide →FoundationLogic ties and lags
FS, SS, FF, SF and the lags between them — the relationships that make a schedule a network instead of a list of dates.
Read the guide →FoundationWork breakdown structure (WBS)
The hierarchy that decomposes a project’s scope into the levels a schedule — and its reporting — hangs from.
Read the guide →IntermediateSchedule quality
Whether a schedule can be trusted as a forecast — judged from its mechanics, not its promises.
Read the guide →IntermediateNegative float
What it means when a schedule reports less than zero slack — and why it demands an answer, not a shrug.
Read the guide →IntermediateSchedule constraints
Date pins that override logic — sometimes necessary, often a way to make a schedule say what someone needs it to say.
Read the guide →IntermediateOut-of-sequence progress
Work reported in a different order than the logic says — a small flag that often reveals a plan no longer being followed.
Read the guide →IntermediateMonthly schedule update
The contractor’s periodic progress submission — the heartbeat of schedule control and the record claims are later built from.
Read the guide →IntermediateLook-ahead schedule
The two-to-six-week slice of the plan used to run the work — where the master schedule meets the field.
Read the guide →AdvancedDelay claims, explained
Excusable, compensable, and critical delay—distinct questions that must be tested against the contract, facts, and governing law.
Read the guide →AdvancedConcurrent delay
When owner and contractor delays overlap — the most contested question in delay analysis.
Read the guide →AdvancedTime impact analysis (TIA)
A forward-looking method for modeling an event, inserting it into an appropriate contemporaneous schedule, and comparing the calculated effect.
Read the guide →AdvancedAs-planned vs as-built analysis
The retrospective comparison of what was promised against what happened — intuitive to show, hard to prove causation with.
Read the guide →AdvancedFragnet
A small network fragment modeling one change or delay event, inserted into the schedule to measure its effect.
Read the guide →AdvancedExtension of time (EOT)
A contractual mechanism for adjusting a completion obligation when the governing agreement permits time relief.
Read the guide →IntermediateSchedule performance index (SPI)
Earned value’s schedule ratio — a useful trend and a dangerous single number.
Read the guide →IntermediateEarned value, in plain terms
PV, EV, AC and the ratios built on them — progress measured in value rather than dates.
Read the guide →IntermediateFloat consumption
Tracking how fast a path’s slack is being spent — the earliest honest warning most schedules give.
Read the guide →IntermediateDCMA 14-point assessment
A widely referenced schedule-mechanics screen—what the fourteen measures catch, and why thresholds are not acceptance criteria.
Read the guide →IntermediateSchedule compression: crashing and fast-tracking
The two levers for recovering time — paying for speed, or accepting overlap risk — and what each does to a schedule.
Read the guide →IntermediateSchedule risk analysis (Monte Carlo)
Replacing single-point durations with ranges to see the odds behind a finish date.
Read the guide →FoundationP6 Professional interface orientation
A professional map of the Projects and Activities workspaces—what each pane controls and where to verify the schedule.
Read the guide →FoundationCreate and govern a P6 project
Set up the EPS location, project identity, dates, calendar, defaults, security, and coding before detailed planning begins.
Read the guide →FoundationBuild and audit P6 calendars
Create project calendars, define shifts and exceptions, assign them deliberately, and verify their effect on dates and durations.
Read the guide →FoundationStructure WBS and activity codes in P6
Create a scope hierarchy and controlled coding system that supports planning, responsibility, reporting, and exchange.
Read the guide →FoundationCreate activities, types, and durations in P6
Turn scope into measurable activities with stable IDs, clear names, suitable types, calendars, duration types, and progress rules.
Read the guide →IntermediateBuild and verify logic in P6
Create predecessor and successor relationships, inspect driving ties, control lags, and eliminate unsupported open ends.
Read the guide →IntermediateSet the data date and schedule a P6 project
Run a controlled F9 calculation with the right data date, options, completion condition, and retained schedule log.
Read the guide →IntermediateCreate, assign, and protect P6 baselines
Capture the accepted plan, assign the correct comparison baseline, display it, and control later updates or replacements.
Read the guide →IntermediateStatus and update a P6 schedule
Collect defensible actuals, reforecast remaining work, advance the data date, calculate, compare, and publish a complete update record.
Read the guide →IntermediateBuild professional P6 layouts, filters, and reports
Create controlled views for planning, status, critical paths, baseline comparison, quality review, and stakeholder reporting.
Read the guide →IntermediateRun and disposition P6 Check Schedule
Screen logic, lags, constraints, float, durations, progress, baselines, closed-project links, and out-of-sequence work.
Read the guide →AdvancedImport, export, and validate P6 XER files
Exchange native schedule data without losing lineage, overwriting global data blindly, or mistaking a successful import for parity.
Read the guide →AdvancedAssign resources and costs in P6
Load resources, roles, units, rates, expenses, and accrual rules without allowing calculation settings to rewrite the plan silently.
Read the guide →AdvancedCalculate multiple float paths in P6
Expose the controlling and near-controlling paths to a selected milestone instead of reporting one critical chain only.
Read the guide →FoundationSchedule basis memorandum
Document the planning rules, assumptions, calendars, coding, logic, resources, constraints, and calculation settings behind the schedule.
Read the guide →IntermediateConstruction calendar governance
Control workweeks, shifts, holidays, weather, possessions, shutdowns, and P6 assignments as managed schedule data.
Read the guide →AdvancedBaseline review and acceptance playbook
Gate scope, logic, calendars, durations, contract dates, resources, quality, narrative, and approval before freezing the plan of record.
Read the guide →IntermediateMonthly schedule update governance
Operate a repeatable cutoff, status, change, calculation, review, response, and approval cycle.
Read the guide →AdvancedSchedule change-control playbook
Separate progress from revisions, authorize consequential edits, preserve before-and-after files, and keep the baseline yardstick intact.
Read the guide →IntermediateSchedule quality thresholds and exception management
Set project-specific screening thresholds, investigate exceptions, and trend the quality of the native schedule without gaming the score.
Read the guide →AdvancedSchedule recovery-plan playbook
Convert a missed forecast into specific, resourced, risk-tested actions with measurable recovered days and approval gates.
Read the guide →FoundationSchedule records and audit-trail handbook
Preserve native files, calculations, narratives, evidence, comments, decisions, and exchanges so future reviews can reconstruct what happened.
Read the guide →Put the guidance to work