Most schedules pass visual inspection and fail structural inspection. Dangling activities, constraints doing the work that logic should be doing, and float that is an artefact of the network rather than a property of the project are common, and none of them are visible in a printed bar chart.
The Independent Schedule Assurance Review is a fixed scope assessment of whether a schedule is structurally sound enough to manage a project, forecast a completion date and support a claim if one becomes necessary.
Who it is for
Boards, sponsors and funders who are being told a date and want to know how much confidence to place in it.
Project managers who inherited a schedule and need to know what they have before they start reporting against it.
Contractors preparing a baseline for submission, who would rather find the problems themselves than have them found by the other side.
What the review covers
The DCMA 14 point assessment in full, plus the checks that matter beyond it:
- Logic: missing predecessors and successors, dangling activities, and whether the network actually drives
- Leads and lags, and negative lag used to force a date
- Relationship types, and over reliance on start to start and finish to finish
- Hard constraints and whether the critical path is real or manufactured
- High float, negative float and long duration activities
- Invalid dates, resource assignment, missed tasks and the critical path test
- Critical path integrity and float erosion between updates
- Baseline execution index and whether progress is being reported honestly
- Calendar setup, exclusions and whether the working pattern reflects reality
- Whether the schedule supports the contract it sits under
What you receive
A written report giving a pass or fail against each check, with the specific activities at fault named, so the findings can be acted on rather than merely noted.
A ranked list of remedial actions separating what would change the forecast completion date from what is cosmetic. Most schedule review reports fail here, and hand over two hundred findings of equal weight.
A plain English statement of how much confidence the schedule currently supports, written for a reader who is not a planner.
Start with the free check
If you want an indication before commissioning anything, our free schedule health check runs a subset of these tests in your browser. No file leaves your machine and there is nothing to install.