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Module 3 · Schedule Development · Week 4 · Live Virtual
This week runs the last step of the process, the pressure test, live against a failure your schedule will recognize. Then comes the handoff, in which your locked schedule becomes exactly what Module 4 needs to price the project.
Quick Reference Guide · pre-work at the top · keep open during the live sessionReopen your locked Schedule Builder build from Week 2, and read it once in both views. While you read, recall Week 3's rule, identify which tasks depend on a subconsultant, and note what has to be executed before each of those tasks starts.
Then look at your own current project and pick one task where a delay would cost the most, in dollars, not days. Bring that task to the session. The close asks for it by name.
What happens in the session
Weeks 1 through 3 built and protected the plan. Week 4 runs the last step of the Schedule Development Process, the pressure test, three weeks after you built the plan, which is exactly when real schedules get tested.
| Segment | What you do |
|---|---|
| Frame and recall · 5 min | Display your locked schedule on screen, and recall Week 3's rule before anything new is introduced, no subconsultant works without a fully executed agreement. |
| Discipline tagging · 15 min | Make two judgment calls for each task. The first asks which tasks a subconsultant likely performs, applying Week 3's make or buy question. The second asks which tasks carry schedule risk worth flagging for Module 4. The discipline tags themselves receive a quick confirmation pass, not this segment's focus. |
| Schedule Risk Spotter · 15 min | This segment is the pressure test. A subconsultant deliverable lands three weeks late. You select which downstream tasks and dates are actually at risk, then select the recovery approach, before the reveal. |
| Close and hand off · 10 min | Post to the chat the one task from your own schedule for which a delay would cost the most money, and explain why. That answer addresses the exact question Module 4 opens with. |
What am I supposed to know?
Module 4 does not start without information. It starts from your locked schedule, and it needs exactly three things from that schedule. Nothing here builds the budget, building the budget is Module 4's work. This week makes sure the schedule arrives ready for the budget process.
Why a slip becomes a cost
Section 4.1 names the five ways budgets fail financially. Read the list carefully. Three of the five are schedule problems that create cost impacts.
This is why the Schedule Risk Spotter scores a three week lab delay in dollars, not days. One late deliverable touches the memorandum, the gate date, the staffing plan behind the final design phase, and the advertisement date the Town announced. A schedule slip on one task compounds into cost on several others.
Capstone connection
The Milestone Schedule and Schedule of Activities you locked in Week 2, now tagged by discipline and flagged for schedule risk, are exactly what Module 4 needs to build the Project Cost Spreadsheet and price the project. Scope, schedule, and budget form one plan across three modules, and you have just written the second chapter.
Several concepts carry forward as well. The critical path and buffer concepts return whenever Module 4 reviews a schedule against a burn rate. The Certificate of Vote rule returns wherever a subconsultant is priced into the budget. The Project Gates you identified in Week 2 become the checkpoints Module 4 uses to explain how a budget gets reviewed and reforecast, rather than built once and left unchanged.