This is step six of the Schedule Development Process, the pressure test, run against a failure your schedule will recognize. A subconsultant deliverable lands three weeks late. Trace what it actually touches, then select the recovery approach.
Select one option · used live in the Week 4 session · about 15 minutes
1
The failure
The lab is three weeks late
Part 1 · Trace the damage
Which items are actually at risk?
This scenario takes place in Week 10 on the Heron Pond Connector Path. The laboratory running the composite soil samples calls to report that intake volume spiked and results will land three weeks late. Your locked schedule shows the lab data feeding the tabulation task, the tabulation feeding the environmental memorandum, and the memorandum included in the package under review. Select every item below that you believe is actually at risk from this one slip. Commit to your selections before you reveal the results.
Part 2 · Select the recovery approach
What does a strong project manager do next?
The trace is real, the memorandum chain, the 90 percent gate, and the advertisement date are all exposed. The subconsultant turnaround buffer, if you placed one in Week 2, absorbs part of the slip, not all of it. Four responses are available for selection below. Select the one the Guidelines support before the reveal.
The Guidelines' answer is b. Section 4.2 states the first action, if the schedule slips, look for opportunities to overlap tasks and recover time. The community engagement chain is independent, so schedule it earlier. Final design preparation that does not depend on the memorandum can start early. Section 2.3 states the second action, if schedule delays happen, communicate the delay to the client before the deadline. The Town hears it from you, with a recovery plan attached, while the cost of that conversation is lowest.
Why the others create risk. Option a trades a schedule problem for a quality problem. The reviews exist to prevent rework, and rework is the most expensive budget buster on the list. Option c uses the two weeks you still control and leaves the outcome dependent on the lab's intake queue. Option d is the one that costs the most, a date changed quietly is the exact behavior that damages a client's trust in every date after it, and the standard of under promise and over deliver runs the other way. Remember why this is a Week 4 exercise, controlling the schedule helps control the budget. Every week of slip you recover here is cost Module 4 never has to carry.
What this exercise just didThat was step six of the Schedule Development Process, the pressure test, run three weeks after the plan was built. Walk the plan forward. Ask what slips if a dependency fails. Fix what the trace exposes. On your own projects, run this exercise before execution starts, and again whenever a dependency becomes uncertain.
Keep the Quick Reference open
This guide contains the handoff checklist, the five budget busters, and the capstone connection.
