DCMA 14-Point Assessment explained · with a worked P6 example

Most large programmes do not drift because anyone lies. They drift because the schedule quietly stops being a model of the work and becomes a document written to protect dates. Logic gets deleted, constraints multiply, and float evaporates into a handful of activities nobody looks at. The DCMA 14-point assessment exists to catch this, structurally, and early.

Developed by the U.S. Defense Contract Management Agency, it is fourteen mechanical tests of schedule quality, not of whether the dates are achievable, but of whether the network is built well enough to be trusted. Run monthly rather than only at claim time, it turns schedule integrity from an argument into a measurement.

What are the 14 DCMA checks, and how do they group?

Network logic (checks 1–5)

• Logic, activities missing predecessors or successors (target: <5%). Dangling activities are the single most common defect.
• Leads, negative lag. Target: zero. A lead usually hides missing logic.
• Lags, excessive positive lag used instead of real activities (target: <5%).
• Relationship types, the network should be at least 90% Finish-to-Start. Too many SS/FF relationships obscure the true critical path.
• Hard constraints, date constraints that override logic (target: <5%). Each one is a place where the schedule stops calculating and starts asserting.

Float & realism (checks 6–10)

• High float, activities with total float > 44 working days often signal broken or missing logic.
• Negative float, target: zero. Negative float means the schedule already knows it is late.
• High duration, activities longer than 44 days should be decomposed.
• Invalid dates, forecast dates in the past or actuals in the future.
• Resources, resourced activities should carry cost or hours.

Executability (checks 11–14)

• Missed tasks, activities slipping behind baseline (target: <5%).
• Critical path test, deliberately push an activity and confirm the critical path reacts. A path that does not move is not really critical.
• CPLI (Critical Path Length Index), critical path length plus total float, divided by critical path length. Below 0.95 means the programme is losing efficiency against its finish.
• BEI (Baseline Execution Index), tasks actually completed divided by tasks that should have completed by the data date. Below 0.95 means the team is falling behind the plan.

What does a failing DCMA result look like in practice?

Take a 1,200-activity civils programme. On paper it shows completion on the contract date. The DCMA run tells a different story: 11% of activities have no predecessor logic, there are 38 hard constraints, and the BEI is 0.82. Read together, those three numbers say the schedule has been pinned to the contract date with constraints while the work itself is running roughly 18% behind. The "on-time" finish is an artefact of the constraints, not of the logic.

Any month where the critical path changes without a corresponding change event is a month that gets a forensic look. It costs a day. The alternative costs an arbitration.

That is the value of the assessment: it makes the problem visible while it is still a management problem, months before it becomes a dispute. Planners tidy the logic they know will be tested; boards ask questions while the answers can still change the outcome.

How fast can you run the DCMA 14-point assessment on a P6 file?

Our Schedule Intelligence tool runs all 14 DCMA tests, plus the GAO 9-point and NASA checks, a full critical-path register and EVM, from a Primavera P6 XER in under 60 seconds, entirely in your browser. Nothing leaves your machine. For live mandates we pair it with independent forensic delay analysis so the numbers are read the way a tribunal will read them.