What the DCMA 14-point assessment is
The DCMA 14-point schedule assessment is a structured health check for project schedules, originally developed by the US Defense Contract Management Agency. It tests fourteen specific schedule quality metrics — logic, constraints, lags, float, and baseline adherence among them — and produces a pass/fail result against defined thresholds for each.
It is not a proprietary tool. The methodology is public and well-documented. On UK infrastructure programmes it has become the de facto standard schedule quality framework, adopted by National Highways, HS2, Network Rail and a growing number of major client programme directors who want an objective, auditable measure of schedule health rather than a planner's assurance that the programme "looks about right." MoD CADMID Demonstration and Manufacture-phase contracts also routinely write DCMA-style screening into the contract data alongside the EVMS reporting clauses, reflecting the assessment's defence origins.
The value of the 14-point assessment is that it is reproducible. Any qualified planner applying the same methodology to the same schedule will get the same results. That objectivity is what makes it useful for gateway reviews, contract assurance and supply chain audits — the result is not a judgement call, it is a measurement.
The fourteen checks explained
Logic: the percentage of activities with at least one predecessor and one successor. The threshold is typically 90% or above. Activities with no predecessors or successors are "open ends" — they float freely and do not respond to changes in the network. A schedule with many open ends is not a network; it is a list of tasks with dates attached.
Leads: the percentage of activities with negative lags (leads). The threshold is typically 0% — any lead is a concern. Leads create a logic bypass: they allow a successor to start before its predecessor finishes without modelling the actual relationship. They are almost always a workaround for a poorly structured logic network.
Lags: the percentage of finish-to-start relationships with a positive lag value. The threshold is typically less than 5%. Lags are not always wrong — a concrete cure time is a legitimate lag — but they are frequently used as a shortcut to make the schedule fit a target date without adding genuine logic.
Relationship types: the percentage of relationships that are finish-to-start. Targets typically require more than 90% FS relationships. Start-to-start and finish-to-finish relationships are not inherently wrong, but an overuse of non-FS logic can create a schedule that is difficult to read, update, and trust.
Hard constraints: the percentage of activities with constraints other than "as late as possible" or "as soon as possible." The threshold is typically less than 5%. Hard constraints override the network logic — they fix a date regardless of what the predecessors are doing. A schedule with many hard constraints will not respond correctly to changes; delays in predecessors will not flow through to constrained successors.
High float: the percentage of activities with total float exceeding a defined threshold (commonly 44 working days). High float is a symptom of logic problems — open ends, missing relationships, or hard constraints that prevent float from flowing correctly.
Negative float: the percentage of activities with negative total float. Any negative float is a concern. Negative float means the schedule is telling you that you cannot achieve the target date with the current logic and durations. It is often a sign that the baseline was set to fit a date rather than to reflect a realistic delivery plan.
High duration: the percentage of activities with durations exceeding a defined threshold (commonly 44 working days). Very long activities are difficult to track, hard to earn value against, and often indicate a planning level that is too high to be useful for day-to-day controls.
Invalid dates: activities with actual dates in the future or forecast dates in the past. These indicate a schedule that has not been properly updated — either the data date has not been moved or progress has not been recorded against completed activities.
Resources: the percentage of activities with resource assignments. Thresholds vary by programme type but are typically 90% or above for delivery activities. Unresourced activities cannot be used for resource-loading, cost integration or meaningful Earned Value Management.
Missed tasks: the percentage of activities that were forecast to start or finish before the data date but have not done so. High missed task rates indicate a schedule that is optimistic about near-term delivery or that is not being properly updated.
Critical path test: whether the critical path is continuous from start to finish and produces a reasonable total float for the longest path. A schedule with a broken or implausible critical path — one with many negative lags or constraints — has failed this test.
Critical path length index (CPLI): a measure of schedule efficiency on the critical path. CPLI = (CP duration + total float) / CP duration. A CPLI below 0.95 indicates that the critical path is longer than planned and that completion on the target date is increasingly unlikely.
Baseline execution index (BEI): the ratio of completed activities to activities that should have been completed by the data date. BEI = completed activities / (completed + behind schedule activities). A BEI above 0.95 indicates that the programme is executing broadly as planned. Below 0.95, the execution rate is falling behind the baseline.
How to read a 14-point result on a real programme
A single 14-point result is a snapshot. The value is in the trend — whether the schedule is improving or degrading across successive updates. A programme that fails on three metrics consistently is more concerning than one that fails on three different metrics each month.
The metrics are not equally important. Logic, hard constraints, and negative float are structural problems — they mean the schedule does not work as a network. High duration and high float are symptoms — they indicate planning quality issues that should be investigated but are not necessarily critical. Missing resources is a reporting problem — it means the schedule cannot support cost integration, which is a separate failure mode.
When reviewing a 14-point result for a supply chain contractor, focus first on the logic metrics (open ends, relationship types, leads) and the critical path metrics (CPLI, BEI, negative float). These are the ones that tell you whether the schedule is a genuine delivery tool or a bar chart dressed as a network.
If a contractor consistently fails the 14-point assessment and continues to produce schedules that fail the same metrics month after month, the issue is usually not competence — it is priority. The schedule is not being maintained because the delivery team does not see it as useful. That is a controls culture problem, not a software problem, and it requires a different intervention.
Using the 14-point assessment on UK infrastructure programmes
On NEC4 programmes, the 14-point assessment should be applied to the Accepted Programme, not just the working schedule. The Accepted Programme is the contractual baseline — it is what the programme director is accountable for delivering. If the Accepted Programme fails the 14-point assessment, the accountability baseline is unreliable.
The assessment should be run by someone other than the planner who built the schedule. Not because planners are dishonest, but because familiarity makes it easy to miss structural problems that are visible to a fresh eye. On major programmes this is typically handled by a client-side project controls team, an independent checker, or a controls assurance function.
Reporting 14-point results to the programme director should include the metric, the result, the threshold, and a one-line explanation of what the metric means and why it matters. A table of fourteen numbers with no context is not a controls report — it is data transfer. The insight is in the interpretation.
If you are asked to produce a 14-point assessment and do not have a dedicated schedule analysis tool, most of the metrics can be calculated in Primavera P6 using the standard reports and the schedule comparison function. @Risk and Acumen can automate the process. What matters is consistency — apply the same methodology every month so the trend is meaningful.