Best Practices Checklist: Updating the Schedule Using Actual Progress and Logic

• Schedule progress is recorded regularly and the schedule has been updated recently. Schedule status is updated with actual and remaining progress.

• Schedule status is based on progress records for the current time period; they include pertinent activity information such as name, unique ID, original and remaining durations, forecasted and actual start and finish dates, and float.

• The status date (or data date) denoting the date of the latest update to the schedule is recorded.

• At least one in-progress activity is critical.

• No activities precede the status date without actual start or finish dates and actual effort up to the status date. No activities beyond the status date have actual start or finish dates or actual effort.

• Activities that are behind schedule by the status date have a remaining duration estimate, and the delay’s effect has been assessed.

  • If the delay is significant, plans to recover the implied schedule slip have been evaluated and implemented, if so decided.

  • Resources are reviewed and may be reassigned, depending on schedule progress.

• Responsibility for changing or statusing the schedule is assigned to someone who has the proper training and experience in CPM scheduling.

• Changes that were made to the schedule during the update have been documented.

• New activities are reviewed for completeness of predecessor and successor logic, resource assignments, and effects on the critical path and float calculations.

• Activities that have started out of sequence or have been completed out of sequence have been addressed using either retained logic or progress override to reflect the order in which they were carried out.

• Management reviews schedule updates to verify and assess effects on the plan. Significant variances between planned and actual performance, as well as between planned and actual logic, are documented and understood.

• The schedule structure is examined after each update to ensure that logic is not missing or broken, all date constraints are necessary, and no artifacts impede the ability of the schedule to dynamically forecast dates.

• The current schedule, once management approves it, is assigned a version number and archived.

• A schedule narrative accompanies each status update and includes

  • the status of key milestone dates, including the program finish date;
  • the status of key hand-offs or giver and receiver dates;
  • explanations for any changes in key dates;
  • changes in network logic, including lags, date constraints, and relationship logic and their effect on the schedule;
  • a description of the critical paths, near-critical paths, and longest paths along with a comparison to the previous period’s paths; and
  • any significant scheduling software options that have changed between update periods, such as the criticality threshold for total float; progress override versus retained logic; or whether resource assignments progress with duration.