hello in this video we'll be discussing the defense contract management agency 14-point assessment the dcma 14-point assessment includes 14 different checks that are run against the cpm schedule to ensure its quality and increase the likelihood of a successful project these checks will focus on activities that are either currently planned or in progress and will exclude all summary tasks milestones or level of effort activities this will allow the assessment to filter out all activities that are just grouping activities and will avoid any duplications in the results which could come from the milestones alright now to give you a little backdrop as to what the dcma 14 point assessment is let's jump right into the different checks the first check that we will complete is for logic with the logic test we will look to make sure that the logic makes sense in terms of project sequence and there are not any open ends within the schedule another thing that should be taken into consideration when checking logic is that there is not too much logic if you're able to eliminate any extra logic that is not needed then this can help reduce any headaches that may occur if there is a delay within the project the second check that we will complete is for leads a lead within a project is also known as negative lag and can cause serious problems when calculating dates there should not be any leads within a proper cpm schedule alright the third check is for lags which are similar to leads except they are positive delay instead of negative so in other words leads are used to accelerate an activity and lags are used to delay an activity dcma recommends that no more than 5 percent of activities have a lag oftentimes leads and lags will be used to either adjust activity dates in order to fit a target requirement or to represent true delays such as concrete curing in either case these can be difficult to manage and control and should be avoided if possible since they are hiding detail within the schedule the fourth check in the 14 point assessment is for logic types dcma recommends that at least 90 percent of all logic links should be a finish to start relationship rather than a start to start finish to finish or start to finish relationship failing this test does not necessarily mean that your schedule is failing or rather provides an opportunity to look at the relationship and provide reasoning or validation for why you chose that relationship the fifth check that we will cover is for heart constraints a constraint is an artificial date set to an activity it can be either one way or two-way a one-way constraint gives you a date and so that it says that the activity must start or finish before or after that date so in other words the activity is being constrained in one direction a two-way constraint is an activity that is being constrained on both ends an example of this would be a must start on constraint a one-way constraint gives you leeway on one side of the dates whereas a two-way constraint does not give you any league way and must start or finish on the specified date two-way constraints should always be avoided in a schedule but one way constraints can sometimes have a valid purpose and dcma recommends that no more than five percent of constrained activities should be a heart constraint an example of an acceptable one-way constraint would be if you have a deliverable that is outside of the current project you are working on which does not allow you to tie the activity into this schedule and you have an activity that cannot start until that deliverable is finished in this case you could assign a start note earlier than constraint which would close the open end the sixth check that we will run is for high float dcma recommends that a schedule not have more than 44 days of total float so we will review all tasks that have greater than two months total float and limit their usage to five percent of incomplete tasks check number seven also relates to float but this time we will check for negative float whenever a schedule has negative flow it is showing that it is already behind the plan schedule ideally there will not be any negative flow within a schedule but if there is make sure that your project team has a well-documented plan to avoid being late negative flow can actually provide an opportunity to easily pinpoint any impossible scenarios that are within your project so the eighth check that we will run is for high duration tasks high duration activities often lack detail as to what exactly is going on in that activity you should shoot for all activities to be less than two months in duration by breaking these long activities down into smaller activities we will be able to provide the necessary detail to show exactly what is occurring and when it is occurring which would otherwise be left out dcma recommends that you limit long duration tasks to 5 or less of all incomplete tasks all right so check number nine is for invalid dates this will uh be a check to make sure that one all dates are still accurate two there are not any activities with progress that have a start date in the future and three there are not any activities with a finish date in the past that still need work completed on them for check number 10 we will ensure that a schedule is resource and cost loaded resource loading is not required but dcma recommends that all activities except for milestones have a cost and a resource associated with them alright check number 11 is for any missed tasks when comparing against a previous baseline so dcma recommends that only five percent of activities can slip from their baseline finish date which will provide you with a clear understanding of a schedule's progress against where you previously forecasted it check number 12 is a critical path integrity test this can easily be checked by adding in a delay to a critical path activity ensuring that it will in fact change the end date of the project checks 13 and 14 are what's referred to as tripwire checks check 13 will check the critical path length index which is a measure of the ratio of the project critical path length plus the project total flow to the project critical path length for this check we will define the critical path length as the time and work days from the current status date to the end of the project our target number for this test is 1 and anything less than 0.95 or 95 percent would be deemed as a failure check number 14 is the baseline execution index test this test will show you how well your project is performing by measuring how many tasks have been completed relative to the number of tasks that were planned to be completed a bei of one means that your project is on track and dcma says that anything less than 0.95 should raise some red flags in conclusion the dcma 14 point assessment is a great starting point for viewing a schedule ensuring that you can avoid the common issues that often arise from a lower quality schedule although it doesn't ensure that a project will be successful it does help to point out any early warning signs so that they can be mitigated accordingly i hope that you found this video helpful and if you have any questions please leave them in the comment section down below don't forget to hit the subscribe button to stay up to date on all the ladies latest videos that acm has to offer thank you for your time and have a wonderful day acm is the first approved education provider as certified by aace international in a project management institute authorized training partner