DCMA 14-point assessment

The DCMA 14-point assessment is a schedule-quality checklist developed by the Defense Contract Management Agency to test whether a CPM schedule is sound enough to rely on. Its fourteen checks cover missing logic (activities without predecessors or successors), leads and lags, relationship types, hard constraints, high float, negative float, high-duration activities, invalid dates, missing resources, missed activities, the critical path test, the critical path length index (CPLI), and the baseline execution index (BEI). Each check has a threshold — for example, no more than 5% of activities missing logic — and failures point to specific mechanical defects that make a schedule's dates untrustworthy. Originally built for defense programs, the 14-point assessment is now widely used across commercial construction as a due-diligence gate before accepting a baseline or update.

Related term: CPM (critical path method) scheduling