The 14 DCMA points, one by one
A grid published by the US Defense Contract Management Agency and adopted in many contracts. It measures the structure of a schedule, not whether its content is right.
The fourteen points
| Point | What it measures | Usual threshold |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Logic | Tasks with no predecessor or no successor | 5% |
| 2. Leads | Links still left open | 5% |
| 3. Relationship types | The share of links other than finish to start | 10% |
| 4. Lags | Links with a waiting time | 5% |
| 5. Negative lags | Links with an overlap | 0% |
| 6. Finish to start | The share of finish-to-start links | 90% or more |
| 7. Hard constraints | Imposed dates that prevent the calculation | 5% |
| 8. High float | Tasks with more than 44 days of total float | 5% |
| 9. Negative float | Tasks with negative total float | 0% |
| 10. High duration | Tasks longer than 44 working days | 5% |
| 11. Invalid dates | Consistency of the logic along the critical path | No break |
| 12. Critical path length test | What happens if a critical task slips by 600 days | The project finish must move by as much |
| 13. Baseline execution index | Work done against work planned | 0.95 to 1.05 |
| 14. Late tasks | Tasks that should be finished and are not | 5% |
The three further checks
- Calendars. A schedule that declares no non-working day and no public holiday computes dates that will not hold.
- Milestones. A schedule with no start milestone and no finish milestone is attached to nothing.
- Legibility. A 900-line Gantt chart on one page is not a schedule, it is a picture.
What the grid does not say
- It does not say whether the durations are realistic. A perfectly structured schedule can be impossible to meet.
- It does not say whether the content is complete. A forgotten task triggers no point.
- It does not conclude. Klargantt gives the number, the threshold and the tasks concerned; it never writes "compliant".
Frequently asked questions
- Are the thresholds mandatory?
- No. They are the ones published in the assessment. A contract may impose others, stricter or looser.
- Why 44 days?
- That is the figure the grid uses: roughly two working months. Beyond it, a task is considered too large to be usefully tracked.