Scheduling specifications, contract requirements and schedule quality

On most projects the construction schedule is not just a management tool; it is a contract document, or at least a contract deliverable. The contract says when the schedule must be submitted, what it must contain, how often it must be updated, who reviews it, and what happens when it shows delay. On larger projects a detailed scheduling specification can run to dozens of pages and set rules for activity durations, logic, constraints, float, cost loading, narratives and software formats. Courts, adjudicators and arbitrators later rely on the schedule submittals to decide who caused delay and who pays. This lesson explains the contract framework for schedules, the content of typical scheduling specifications, the review of baseline schedules, the question of float ownership, and the quality checks reviewers use.

The contract framework

In the United States, many private building contracts use the American Institute of Architects (AIA) documents. Section 3.10.1 of AIA A201-2017, General Conditions of the Contract for Construction, requires the contractor, promptly after being awarded the contract, to submit for the owner's and architect's information a construction schedule that does not exceed time limits under the contract documents, is revised at appropriate intervals as required by the conditions of the work, and provides for the orderly progression of the work to completion. Section 3.10.3 requires the contractor to perform the work in general accordance with the most recent schedules submitted. Federal construction contracts include FAR clause 52.236-15, Schedules for Construction Contracts, which requires a practicable schedule and allows the contracting officer to withhold approval of progress payments if the contractor fails to submit one, and federal agencies and state departments of transportation often add detailed CPM specifications.

Note what the general conditions do and do not say. They require a schedule, set its basic purpose and require updates. They usually do not specify the method, the level of detail, the treatment of float or the format. Those details belong in the specifications, typically in MasterFormat section 01 32 16 Construction Progress Schedule or a similarly named section.

What a scheduling specification typically requires

Scheduling specifications vary widely, from a single page on a small project to forty pages on a major public works contract. Common requirements include:

• Method and software: a critical path schedule in the precedence diagramming method, often in a named software format, such as Primavera P6 files, with native files submitted, not just printouts.
• Timing: a preliminary schedule within a short period after award, often 10 to 30 days, and a detailed baseline within 30 to 60 days.
• Content: all work, including submittals, procurement, fabrication, delivery, inspections, owner activities, commissioning and closeout.
• Activity rules: maximum durations for construction activities, often 15 or 20 working days; descriptive names; codes for area, trade and responsibility.
• Logic rules: every activity with a predecessor and successor; limits or bans on leads, lags, start-to-finish links and hard constraints.
• Calendars: working days, holidays and weather days, often with a table of anticipated weather days per month.
• Cost or resource loading: activity costs that sum to the contract price and tie to the schedule of values, used to check progress payments.
• Updates: monthly updates with actual dates, remaining durations and percent complete, submitted before or with each payment application.
• Narratives: a written report with each submittal explaining the critical path, changes in logic or durations, delays, and corrective action.
• Time impact analyses: a fragnet analysis to support any request for a time extension (Lesson 11).
• Float: a statement of who owns float, and a ban on sequestering float, for example by inflating durations or using preferential logic to consume it.

The baseline submittal and review

The baseline schedule, once accepted, is the yardstick against which every later update is measured. Reviewing it carefully is one of the most valuable things an owner's team can do. A thorough review looks at the following.

• Compliance: does the schedule meet the specification's format, content, activity, logic and calendar rules?
• Completeness: are all the scope, milestones, owner activities and interfaces with other contracts included?
• Logic: does the sequence make construction sense? Are there open ends, excessive constraints or suspicious lags?
• Durations: are they reasonable for the quantities and resources, and consistent with the cost loading?
• Critical path: is it continuous from the start to completion, and does it pass through the work an experienced builder would expect?
• Float: is float distributed plausibly, or is it hidden by preferential logic, inflated durations or early finish dates?

Owners usually accept, or accept with comments, rather than approve the schedule, so as not to take responsibility for the contractor's means and methods. Accepting a schedule that shows the work finishing early, however, can have consequences: some contracts and decisions have treated the time between an accepted early finish and the contract date as available to the contractor, a question tied to float ownership.

Schedule quality checks

Owners, lenders and auditors use standard checks to assess schedule quality. In the United States, the Defense Contract Management Agency's 14-point assessment, developed for defense programs, has become a widely used benchmark across industries, including construction. Its thresholds are guidelines rather than rules, but they give reviewers a consistent starting point.

Many US public owners, including federal agencies and state departments of transportation, write the DCMA-style checks directly into their specifications, and the US Government Accountability Office's Schedule Assessment Guide sets out best practices for federal program schedules.

Float ownership

Float is valuable. A contractor that uses float to absorb its own problems, such as a late crew, has less protection if the owner later causes a delay on the same path. An owner that consumes float through slow approvals or late changes may reduce the contractor's flexibility without extending the contract time. Who owns float therefore matters a great deal in delay disputes.

• Project float, or shared float: float belongs to the project and is available to whichever party needs it first. A delay that consumes float does not extend the contract time; only delay to the completion date does. This is the most common position in modern specifications.
• Contractor float: float belongs to the contractor, who scheduled the work, so owner delays that consume it may give rise to compensation even if the completion date is not affected.
• Owner float: rare, but some contracts reserve float to the owner.
• Allocated float: some approaches divide float between the parties or allocate it activity by activity.

The AIA A201 general conditions do not address float ownership, so it is set in specifications. Many federal and state specifications say that float is not for the exclusive use or benefit of either party and is a shared resource of the project. Boards of contract appeals and courts have generally applied the shared-float approach where the contract says nothing else, and AACE International's recommended practices are widely cited in disputes.

Sequestering float and other abuses

Because float has value, both parties sometimes try to control it unfairly. Contractors may inflate durations, add preferential logic or use constraints so that few activities show float, leaving almost every owner delay on the critical path. Owners may insist on unrealistically short durations so that the contractor has no float, or schedule their own activities to use float. Specifications counter these practices by requiring durations to be supported by resources and quantities, by prohibiting float suppression techniques, and by giving the owner's reviewer the right to reject unrealistic logic.

Forensic schedule analysis

When delays become disputes, experts reconstruct what happened using the schedule submittals and project records. AACE International's Recommended Practice 29R-03, Forensic Schedule Analysis, classifies the methods in use, such as as-planned versus as-built comparisons, windows analysis using contemporaneous updates, impacted as-planned and collapsed as-built analyses, and time impact analyses. The details belong in the claims course (CON-420), but the lesson for schedulers is simple: regular, accurate, well-documented updates are the best evidence any party can have. A project with no reliable updates forces experts to rebuild history from diaries and photographs, which is expensive and uncertain for everyone.