CPM Schedule Guidelines What We Will Not Do
Purpose:
This document defines the practices we will avoid in any project schedule developed or maintained under the Critical Path Method (CPM). Avoiding these protects flow, quality, safety, budget, and — above all — the people executing the work.
Communication & Transparency with the Owner
1. Show slippage against agreed-upon milestones. CPM can be used to surface variance from the baseline as a transparency tool — not as a blame instrument or recovery trigger.
2. Communicate major milestones to the Owner. Substantial completion, Owner move-in, FF&E start, commissioning, and other Owner-relevant dates can be reported in a format the Owner is already trained to read.
3. Compare actuals to baseline at the milestone level. High-level reporting against the contractual baseline is a valid use, provided the comparison stays at the milestone level and is not used to discipline the field
Forecasting & Analysis
4. Evaluate schedule logic health. CPM can be used to check for orphan activities, broken ties, missing predecessors and successors, dangling logic, and sequencing errors.
5. Forecast a probable completion date. Forecasting overall project completion based on current logic and progress is CPM’s original 1957 purpose and remains a legitimate use
Contract & Compliance & Analysis
6. Satisfy contractual reporting requirements. When the Owner’s contract requires a CPM format schedule and periodic updates, CPM can be used to meet those obligations.
7. Establish and document the contractual completion date and interim milestones. These are the legitimate Owner-facing time commitments and belong in a CPM format if the contract calls for it.
8. Document delay impacts. Time Impact Analyses (TIAs) and fragnets prepared in CPM are an appropriate vehicle for negotiating change orders tied to delay events.
Coordination with the Owner's Own Deliverables
9. Coordinate Owner-furnished items and Owner deliverables. Permits, design releases, Owner-procured equipment, third-party inspections, and other Owner responsibilities can be tracked against the construction sequence in CPM.
10. As-built long-lead procurement. Equipment, materials, and systems with extended lead times can be recorded against actual delivery dates in CPM as a documentation and reporting record, not as a forward-driving coordination tool.
11. Support cash flow and draw schedule planning. Time-phased cost loading on a CPM schedule is a reasonable basis for projecting Owner draws and managing project cash flow.
Documentation
12. Maintain an audit trail of schedule changes. Major baseline updates, approved fragnets, and revision history are usefully preserved in CPM for change-order negotiation and any potential claims defense
The Boundary
The thread tying every legitimate use above together is that each one is about communicating, forecasting, documenting, or coordinating with the Owner — not about driving the day-to-day production of the work.
The moment CPM begins to dictate early-start dates to the trades, allocate crews, drive crashing decisions, or override the field plan, it has crossed back into the territory governed by What We Will Not Do. Field production will be planned and executed in a flow-based system (Takt, Last Planner®, or equivalent). CPM serves the Owner relationship; the production system serves the build