---
name: capital-project-schedule-health-checker
description: "Reviews a capital project schedule across seven diagnostic dimensions — logic integrity, float consumption, critical path exposure, milestone sequencing, resource loading, calendar/constraint hygiene, and progress reliability — then delivers a weighted health scorecard and a ranked list of corrective actions. Use when auditing a CPM schedule before a baseline freeze, gate review, or monthly update, or when diagnosing why a project schedule keeps slipping."
argument-hint: "[project-phase] [schedule-data]"
allowed-tools: ["Read"]
---

# Capital Project Schedule Health Checker

## Purpose
Diagnose the structural and quantitative health of a CPM project schedule — surfacing logic gaps, dangerous float consumption, critical path fragility, milestone sequencing risk, and resource overloads — and deliver a weighted health scorecard with a ranked corrective action list. Turns a raw schedule into a defensible risk picture that survives a gate review.

## When to Use
Invoke this skill when the user asks to:
- Health-check or QA a project schedule before baselining or a stage-gate review
- Diagnose why a capital project keeps slipping despite reported progress
- Assess critical path exposure and float consumption on an active schedule
- Review milestone sequencing and interface risk across contractors or work packages
- Validate a contractor's or EPC's schedule submission before acceptance
- Prepare a schedule risk summary for a Project Director or steering committee

## Inputs Required
Before starting, collect:
- **Project phase**: FEED / detailed design / procurement / construction / commissioning
- **Schedule data**: Activity list with durations, relationships (FS/SS/FF/SF + lags), and total float — either exported (CSV/text) or pasted key activities and milestones
- **Baseline vs. current status**: Whether this is a baseline review or an update, and the data date
- **Key milestones/contractual dates**: Named milestones with target/contractual dates and any LDs attached
- **Resource loading**: Whether the schedule is resource-loaded and, if so, key resource/crew constraints
- **Known constraints**: Hard constraints (mandatory dates), permit/regulatory gates, long-lead items, weather windows
- **Contract type**: Lump sum / reimbursable / EPC / multi-prime (affects interface and float ownership risk)

If the schedule is not resource-loaded or float data is missing, note the limitation and assess the remaining dimensions, flagging what cannot be verified.

## Instructions

### Step 1: Logic Integrity Check
Test the network for structural soundness. Flag each finding with the affected activity count.
- **Open ends**: Activities missing a predecessor (except project start) or successor (except project finish) — every open end is an uncontrolled float pool
- **Dangling logic**: Activities with only SS or only FF ties, leaving start or finish undriven
- **Excessive lags/leads**: Lags over 5% of activity duration or any negative lag (lead) — both hide real logic
- **Redundant/hard constraints**: Count constraints; flag any "Must Finish On" / "Mandatory" that override network logic and mask negative float
- **Relationship mix**: Flag if FS relationships are under ~90% of total — heavy SS/FF use inflates parallelism and understates duration risk
- **DCMA 14-point overlay** where data allows: report logic %, lag %, hard constraint count, high-float %, negative-float count, and merge hotspots

### Step 2: Float Consumption Analysis
Assess how much schedule buffer remains and where it is eroding.
- **Total float distribution**: Bucket activities into negative float, 0–5 days, 6–20 days, 21+ days
- **Float erosion trend** (if baseline available): Compare current total float to baseline — flag activities that have lost >50% of original float
- **False float**: Identify high-float activities caused by open ends or missing logic rather than genuine slack
- **Near-critical paths**: Flag paths with float under 10 days — these become critical with one bad update

### Step 3: Critical Path Exposure
Evaluate the fragility of the driving path.
- **Path clarity**: Confirm a continuous, logic-driven critical path exists from data date to project completion — flag if the path breaks or jumps unexpectedly
- **Merge hotspots**: Identify milestones/activities where 3+ paths converge — merge bias means these slip more than any single path predicts
- **Constraint-driven vs. logic-driven critical path**: Flag if the critical path is being set by a date constraint rather than real work sequence (a red flag for a hidden problem)
- **Single points of failure**: Long-lead procurement, permits, or single-crew activities sitting on or near the critical path

### Step 4: Milestone Sequencing Risk
Check that milestones are achievable and correctly ordered.
- **Contractual date exposure**: Compare each contractual milestone's calculated finish to its target — quantify days ahead/behind and flag LD-bearing milestones at risk
- **Sequencing logic**: Verify milestones fall in a physically buildable order (e.g., mechanical completion before commissioning, permits before construction start)
- **Interface milestones**: For multi-prime/EPC, check handoff milestones between parties have defined logic on both sides — orphaned interfaces are a top slippage cause
- **Milestone density**: Flag periods where too many milestones cluster within a short window without adequate driving logic

### Step 5: Resource Loading & Reasonableness
Where resource data exists, test executability.
- **Over-allocation**: Flag crews/resources exceeding available capacity in any period (histogram peaks)
- **Duration reasonableness**: Flag activities whose durations imply unrealistic productivity or crew sizes for the scope
- **Long-duration activities**: Flag any activity over ~44 working days (DCMA threshold) — these hide risk and should be decomposed
- **Front-loading / back-loading**: Note if the plan defers most work late, creating a back-end resource cliff

### Step 6: Calendar, Constraint & Progress Hygiene
Validate the data date and status quality.
- **Calendar sanity**: Confirm work calendars reflect real conditions (weather windows, shutdowns, holidays, shift patterns)
- **Out-of-sequence progress**: Flag activities showing progress before predecessors complete — indicates broken logic or update errors
- **Stale/actualized status**: Flag activities that should have started/finished per the data date but show no status ("should-have-started" / "should-have-finished")
- **Progress reliability**: Compare % complete claims against remaining duration for internal consistency

### Step 7: Build the Health Scorecard
Score each of the six diagnostic dimensions 0–100 and apply weights, then compute an overall grade.
- Logic Integrity (weight 20%)
- Float & Buffer (weight 15%)
- Critical Path Robustness (weight 20%)
- Milestone Sequencing (weight 20%)
- Resource Loading (weight 15%)
- Data & Progress Hygiene (weight 10%)

Grade bands: **Green (85–100)** baseline-ready; **Amber (65–84)** usable with corrections; **Red (<65)** not fit for baseline/gate approval. State the overall grade plainly.

### Step 8: Ranked Corrective Actions
List 8–12 corrective actions ordered by risk-reduction impact. For each: the finding, the specific fix, the owner role (planner / discipline lead / contractor / PM), and the priority (Immediate / Before next update / This cycle).

## Output Format
- **Structure**: Seven diagnostic sections → health scorecard table → ranked corrective action list
- **Length**: 1,000–1,400 words
- **Format**: Structured document — findings as labeled bullets with counts; scorecard as a table (dimension, score, weight, grade); corrective actions as a numbered ranked list
- **Sections**: Logic Integrity → Float Consumption → Critical Path Exposure → Milestone Sequencing → Resource Loading → Calendar & Progress Hygiene → Health Scorecard → Ranked Corrective Actions
- **Tone**: Project controls specialist — quantitative, direct, evidence-first; every flag tied to a count, threshold, or named activity, not a general warning

## Quality Checklist
Before delivering output, verify:
- [ ] All six diagnostic dimensions are scored 0–100 and the weighted overall grade is calculated and stated (Green/Amber/Red)
- [ ] Every flagged issue includes a specific count, threshold, or named activity/milestone — no vague "check the logic"
- [ ] Open ends, hard constraints, high-float activities, and negative-float activities are each reported as counts
- [ ] Critical path exposure identifies whether the path is logic-driven or constraint-driven
- [ ] Corrective actions are ranked by risk-reduction impact and each names an owner role and priority (8–12 actions)
- [ ] Any dimension that couldn't be assessed due to missing data is explicitly flagged as unverified, not silently scored

## Notes
- A constraint-driven critical path is the single most common way real slippage gets hidden — always confirm the path is set by work logic, not by a "Must Finish On" date
- Merge bias means milestones with many converging paths almost always slip more than a single-path analysis predicts; weight merge hotspots heavily in the risk picture
- On multi-prime and EPC jobs, orphaned interface milestones (logic on only one side) are a leading cause of downstream delay — check both sides of every handoff
- If reviewing a contractor submission before acceptance, a Red grade is grounds to reject and return the schedule rather than baseline it

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## How to use this skill

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