You just received a DCMA 14-Point Schedule Health Assessment on your construction project. It's got percentages, pass/fail grades, something called a Baseline Execution Index, and a compliance score that doesn't look great. Your scheduler says it's fine. Your owner says it's not. And you need to figure out who's right before tomorrow's OAC meeting.
This guide breaks down what each metric in a DCMA 14-point report actually means, what the scores tell you about your project's real risk, and what to do when your schedule fails.
What Is a DCMA 14-Point Assessment?
The Defense Contract Management Agency created this framework in 2005 to evaluate the quality of project schedules across thousands of U.S. Department of Defense contracts. The 14 criteria check whether a CPM schedule is logically sound, realistically sequenced, and reliable enough to use for management decisions.
Since then, the construction industry has adopted it as the standard schedule quality benchmark — not just for defense projects, but for commercial, institutional, and infrastructure work across North America. If your owner, CM, or legal team is asking for a "schedule health check," this is what they mean.
The assessment doesn't tell you whether your project will finish on time. It tells you whether your schedule is trustworthy enough to answer that question.
The 14 Criteria — What Each One Checks
Logic Checks (Criteria 1–4)
C1 – Missing Predecessors and C2 – Missing Successors measure the percentage of activities that have incomplete logic — not properly connected to the rest of the schedule network. The DCMA threshold is 5% for each. If your report shows 12% missing predecessors, roughly 1 in 8 activities is floating free without anything driving its start date. Those dates are essentially arbitrary.
C3 – Lags checks whether excessive lag values are being used in relationships. The threshold is 5%. Lags often hide real work that should be broken out as separate activities — like saying "wait 14 days" instead of explicitly scheduling submittal review and approval as trackable tasks.
C4 – Relationship Types checks whether the schedule predominantly uses Finish-to-Start (FS) relationships. The threshold is 90% FS. Heavy use of Start-to-Start or Finish-to-Finish relationships often indicates shortcuts in the logic rather than genuine concurrent work.
Schedule Integrity (Criteria 5–8)
C5 – Hard Constraints measures how many activities have hard constraints (Must-Start-On, Must-Finish-On) that override the schedule's calculated logic. Threshold: 5%. Hard constraints tell P6 to ignore the math and use a fixed date instead — which means those activities won't shift when upstream work slips.
C6 – High Float checks for activities with total float exceeding 44 working days. These activities are disconnected from meaningful work sequences. If an activity has 200 days of float, it's essentially saying "this could happen anytime in the next 10 months" — which isn't a schedule, it's a wish list.
C7 – Negative Float identifies activities that are already calculated as late before they even start. Any negative float means the schedule's own math says the project can't meet its current dates without changes.
C8 – High Duration flags activities exceeding 44 working days. Long durations typically mask multiple work packages that should be broken down for proper tracking and control.
Status & Progress (Criteria 9–12)
C9 – Invalid Dates catches activities where actual dates are in the future or forecast dates are in the past. These indicate the schedule hasn't been properly updated — the data doesn't match reality.
C10 – Resources checks whether activities have resource assignments. Without resources, you can't perform resource leveling, calculate earned value, or identify overallocation conflicts. Threshold: 0% unassigned.
C11 – Missed Tasks identifies activities that should have started or finished by the data date but haven't. A high count means your schedule is optimistic and not reflecting actual field progress.
C12 – Critical Path Test verifies that the critical path is continuous from project start to finish and responds correctly to delays. If inserting a 200-hour delay on a critical activity doesn't push the project finish date, your critical path is broken.
Performance Metrics (Criteria 13–14)
C13 – CPLI (Critical Path Length Index) compares the remaining critical path duration plus total float to the remaining project duration. Values below 1.0 indicate the schedule is running behind. This requires a baseline schedule to calculate.
C14 – BEI (Baseline Execution Index) measures the ratio of tasks completed on time versus total tasks that should be complete. Values below 0.95 indicate systematic schedule slippage. Also requires a baseline.
Score Ranges — What They Mean
| Score | Grade | Status | What It Means |
|---|---|---|---|
| 90–100% | A | GREEN | Schedule is well-maintained and reliable for management decisions |
| 75–89% | B | AMBER | Minor issues that should be corrected but don't undermine reliability |
| 50–74% | C–D | RED | Significant deficiencies — schedule reliability is compromised |
| Below 50% | F | CRITICAL | Schedule cannot be relied upon for project management decisions |
What to Do When Your Schedule Fails
A failed DCMA assessment doesn't mean your project is in trouble. It means your schedule is in trouble — and a bad schedule makes it impossible to see whether your project is in trouble or not.
Priority order for corrections:
- Fix logic issues first (C1, C2) — everything else depends on the network being connected
- Remove artificial constraints (C5) — let the schedule calculate dates based on logic
- Update status (C9, C11) — make sure the schedule reflects reality
- Break down long durations (C8) — improve tracking granularity
- Verify critical path (C12) — confirm the math is working
The goal isn't to make all 14 criteria pass. The goal is to have a schedule you can trust. Sometimes a criterion fails for a legitimate reason (like using SS relationships for genuinely concurrent work). A good consultant explains why it failed, not just that it failed.
Need Your Schedule Assessed?
Get a Professional DCMA Health Check
Upload your P6 XER file. Get a comprehensive 14-point assessment with an interactive dashboard, written narrative, and fix-it roadmap — delivered in 48 hours.
Get Your Health Check — $499Related: Construction Schedule Rejected by Owner — What to Do Next · See a Sample Report