Dependency map and look-ahead schedule, with timing assumptions

Three sheets that replace a countdown. The first holds your timing assumptions and turns them into a rough window, labelled as yours. The second is the dependency map for your project type: what has to happen before what, and where an inspection or a delivery can hold everything. The third is the two-week look-ahead you keep updating once work starts. The thinking is taught in Module 5 (sequence and holds) and Module 9 (the look-ahead).

Sheet 1: timing assumptions

There is no date on this page that the course knows and you do not. Every number below is something you are assuming, and the derived window is only arithmetic on those assumptions. Change an assumption and the window moves; confirm an assumption with the person who controls it (your designer, the building department, a supplier, your contractor) and it stops being an assumption. The list of prerequisites you have not yet confirmed sits above the window so you cannot read the window without reading the list.

Prerequisites not yet confirmed

Tick an item only when the person who controls it has confirmed it. Mark "Applies?" as "no" for items that do not apply to your project, and they drop out of the list. Everything else is unresolved until you say otherwise.

The window your assumptions produce

Sheet 2: dependency map

One row per phase or activity, in order. The "depends on" column is the point of the sheet: a phase cannot start until the things in that column are true. "Inspection or approval hold" names the official check that must pass before the next phase can cover the work. "Long-lead item needed" names anything that must be on site for that phase and that takes weeks to arrive. Load the illustrative sequence for your project type, then edit it until it describes your project; the inspection names and the order of some steps vary by jurisdiction, and your permit (once issued) lists the inspections that actually apply.

The four sequences are illustrative, assembled from municipal inspection guides and contractor practice. They are not your jurisdiction's inspection list and not a schedule. Durations are blank on purpose: fill them from your contractor's or your trades' written estimates.

Sheet 3: two-week look-ahead

Once work starts, the dependency map is too coarse to run a week by. The look-ahead lists what is supposed to happen in the next two weeks, who is doing it, and whether the things it depends on are actually in place: prerequisites done, decisions made, materials on site, inspection requested. A task whose prerequisites are "no" or "unknown" is a conversation to have this week, not next. Update it weekly, ideally at the site meeting (tool 8), and move anything you cannot verify off the sheet rather than leaving it there looking confirmed.

The example rows show a fictional single-story addition (the Birch Lane addition, invented for Module 9) in the week its windows slip: the dry-in cannot finish, so the framing inspection cannot be requested, and three other trades' weeks move with it. Look at how many rows one late delivery touches.

How to use the three sheets together

• Before design is done: fill Sheet 1 with honest guesses and write down who will confirm each one. The window is a conversation starter with your designer and lender, not a plan.
• During permit review and bidding: ask the building department and your bidders for their numbers in writing and replace your guesses. Build Sheet 2 from the bidder's proposed sequence, and ask every bidder which inspections they expect and who requests them.
• Once work starts: Sheet 3 is the living document. Sheet 1 is still worth updating when a lead time or a review slips, because the finish moves and the people waiting on it (lenders, landlords, movers, schools) should hear it from you early.
• Every week: any "no" or "unknown" in the look-ahead's prerequisite columns is an item for the decision log (tool 9) or a question for the meeting.
• Print the sheets before meetings, and export the binder from the binder page whenever you have made changes you would hate to lose.