CDOT CPM scheduling requirements: Standard Specifications 108.03 and 108.08
The Colorado Department of Transportation carries its scheduling requirement at 108.03, Project Schedule, of the 2025 Standard Specifications for Road and Bridge Construction (Version 1), running from 108.03(a) to 108.03(i). Time extensions sit separately at 108.08, Determination and Extension of Contract Time, and it is 108.08(d) that names the analysis methods.
Two features make this the most prescriptive of the sixteen documents read for this site on what the schedule file may contain. 108.03(b) sets out five things that may not be used without the Engineer's approval — a prohibition list rather than a preference. And where Primavera is the software chosen, the same clause mandates a scheduling option by name: the schedule is calculated using Retained Logic. No other agency compared here reaches into the software's calculation settings that way outside a named-settings list.
What 108.03 requires
| Requirement | What the 2025 Standard Specifications state | Clause |
|---|---|---|
| Scheduling software | Either Microsoft Project or Primavera. The choice is notified to the Engineer in writing before or at the preconstruction conference, and cannot be changed after the first schedule submittal. Where Primavera is chosen, the schedule is calculated using the Retained Logic scheduling option | 108.03(b) |
| First schedule due | A Preliminary Schedule may be submitted within 14 days of award, covering planned activities from Notice to Proceed through the first 60 days and showing no progress; it is approved before work commences. A Contractor electing not to submit one submits a complete Baseline Schedule within those same 14 days instead, on all the baseline requirements | 108.03(d) |
| Baseline deadline | Where a Preliminary Schedule was submitted, a Baseline Schedule covering all work activities within Contract Time follows within 45 days of award, with no progress shown. Once 60 days have passed from the start of Contract Time, further partial payments stop until the Baseline is approved. Once approved it becomes the Project Schedule | 108.03(e) |
| Agency review | Not to exceed 10 days, with one of three responses: approved with no exceptions taken; approved as noted; or revise and resubmit within 10 days. A schedule review meeting is held to discuss each submittal | 108.03(b) |
| Update frequency | Monthly, carried through to whatever cut-off the month's progress pay estimate uses, with a projection for the remaining activities. No monthly progress payment is issued where no update has been received, and later months' payments may be withheld until it is approved or approved as noted. The requirement may be waived during a maintenance or landscape establishment period; a final update covers all work through final acceptance | 108.03(b), (f) |
| Look-ahead | A written Weekly Planning Schedule covering the Contractor's and subcontractors' planned activities for a minimum of two weeks after submittal, plus actual days worked against planned for the week before, with descriptions, durations, sequence and anticipated lane closures. Based on the Project Schedule; the report requirements below do not apply to it | 108.03(g) |
| Narrative | A Job Progress Narrative Report with every submittal, on two content lists: seven items for baseline, preliminary and revised schedules, and thirteen for updates — among them problems encountered or anticipated, milestones forecast late, completion date status and any movement since the previous month, delays named by activity ID with their effect on other activities and milestones, and logic and duration changes on critical or near-critical activities | 108.03(c) |
| Revised schedule trigger | Seven named major changes: significant logic or construction-method changes, or changes to the critical path; activities added, deleted or revised by Contract Modification Order; approval of a Value Engineering Change Proposal; delays in milestones or project completion; phasing revisions; the Engineer determining that the schedule has a fatal flaw; or work that cannot be constructed as scheduled. Due within 10 days of written notification | 108.03(h) |
| Time impact analysis | Yes, and the methods are named. Written notice of delay within 7 days, failing which entitlement is waived; the request and analysis within 30 days of that notice, by a Time Impact Analysis following AACE International RP 52R-06, a Forensic Schedule Analysis following AACE International RP 29R-03, or another method the Engineer approves — with the choice explained. See the section below | 108.08(d) |
| Float ownership | Float in the Baseline or any other Project Schedule is not for the exclusive use or benefit of either party but is a project resource available to both as needed until it is depleted | 108.03(b) |
| Activity durations | Individual construction activities do not exceed 15 days of work unless the Engineer approves. A series of activities totalling five workdays or less may be grouped into one. Non-construction activities may run longer where approved | 108.03(b) |
| Prohibited without approval | Five: negative lags; lags over 10 workdays; start-to-finish relationships; open-ended activities; and constraints | 108.03(b) |
| Two definitions that carry weight | Near critical: total float of five days or fewer, or as the Engineer defines. Open-ended: see the section below — the definition is broader than the name | 108.03(a) |
| Reports | Five with every submittal, beyond the time-scaled logic diagram: a predecessor and successor report defining all logic and indicating relationships and constraints; an early start report sorted by actual or early start; a float report sorted in ascending order of available float; a critical path report of incomplete activities with percent complete, sorted by float then early start; and a listing of all non-workdays | 108.03(c) |
| Submittal media | Two USB flash drives, or other media the Engineer directs, carrying the schedule in its native format and in PDF. The title bar names the project number, subaccount, project name, Contractor and data date, adding a revision number and dates where a schedule is revised during review | 108.03(c) |
A scheduling option mandated by name
108.03(b) contains one sentence that no other specification on this site has a counterpart for outside a named-settings list: where the Contractor selects Primavera, the schedule is calculated using the Retained Logic scheduling option.
Retained logic is one of the choices a scheduling tool offers for handling out-of-sequence progress — work that has started before a predecessor it depends on has finished. Under retained logic, the remaining part of the progressed activity is still held back until its predecessor completes. The usual alternative, progress override, releases the remainder to continue immediately. The two settings can produce materially different completion dates from the same activities, the same durations and the same logic, and the difference grows with the amount of out-of-sequence progress in the update.
So the clause matters more than its length suggests. A schedule's calculated dates are not a property of its activities alone but of its activities and the options the scheduler ran under, and fixing the option in the specification removes one source of variation between what the Contractor computed and what a reviewer recomputes.
The setting is recorded in a Primavera export, so "was this schedule calculated under retained logic" is answerable from the file. What the file does not settle is whether the setting was in force when the dates in it were produced. P6 schedule options sets out what each option does and which the export carries.
Five things the schedule may not contain
The prohibition list at 108.03(b) — negative lags, lags over 10 workdays, start-to-finish relationships, open-ended activities, and constraints — is worth reading together with the definitions at 108.03(a), because one of the five is defined more broadly than its name suggests.
An open-ended activity is defined not only as one lacking a predecessor or a successor, but also as one whose only predecessor relationship is start-to-start, or whose only successor relationship is finish-to-finish. That second half catches activities that look connected in a relationship count and are not connected in the direction that matters: an activity whose only tie forward is a finish-to-finish link has nothing driving its finish through to what follows it. A check that counts relationships per activity passes such an activity; a check written to this definition does not.
Constraints are on the list as a class — not a particular type, not hard constraints only. That is a different posture from the agencies compared here that require a completion constraint, and from those that permit constraints with an explanation. Colorado's default is none, with the Engineer's approval the route to any.
All five are decidable from an imported file: lag values and signs, relationship types, the predecessor and successor sets per activity, and constraint types and dates are each recorded in the export. This project reports them as the file states them; whether the Engineer approved a particular use is a fact about the contract record. Schedule constraints and lags and leads cover the mechanics.
Naming AACE recommended practices, and a data-date rule attached to them
108.08(d) is one of only three documents read for this site that name an external analysis method rather than prescribing a shape: forward-looking impacts to the AACE International recommended practice on prospective time impact analysis, impacts already absorbed into the schedule to the one on forensic schedule analysis, and a third route for another method the Engineer approves — with the choice explained in every case.
Two further conditions sit around that choice, and both are about the schedule the analysis is built on rather than about the analysis.
The supporting schedule must be a current approved one with a data date within 30 days before the alleged delay. The Engineer's determination rests on the current schedule carrying an "approved, no exceptions taken" or "approved as noted" status, that data-date condition, the Contractor's documentation and analysis, and other relevant information.
And having no current approved schedule precludes an extension. The clause also separates the analysis from the routine update: adding activities or changing logic on an update does not itself constitute supporting documentation for a delay request, the justification is submitted separately, and approval of an update is not approval of a time extension.
Read together, these make the monthly update obligation a precondition for the delay remedy rather than a reporting chore.
This project reports what an imported schedule contains, including its data date, and what changed between two schedules. It does not determine whether a delay is excusable or compensable, does not apportion concurrency, and does not conduct an analysis under either recommended practice — those are determined by the reviewing authority. How delay analysis methods differ sets the two families side by side, and the methods this project uses states what it computes.
What this page does not tell you
- It does not tell you which clauses govern your project. The incorporated contract documents — the edition and version named, plus every project special provision, including the Commencement and Completion of Work special provision that 108.08 refers contract time to — are what apply. An agency's name alone does not establish which clauses bind.
- Only 108.03 and 108.08 were read. Provisions elsewhere in the 2025 book bearing on claims, liquidated damages or payment are outside what this page establishes.
- The AACE recommended practices themselves are not reproduced here. 108.08(d) names them; what each requires is a matter for those documents, which are published by AACE International and are not quoted on this site.
- There is no rule pack behind this page. It rests on a reading of the specification text, with each requirement cited to the clause it came from. Nothing in this engine checks a schedule against these clauses today.
- This project computes and reports; it does not decide submissions. Whether a schedule is acceptable, whether a relationship or a lag was permitted, and whether more contract time is due, are determined by the reviewing authority.
Related pages
- How state DOT scheduling specifications compare.
- Neighbouring readings: TxDOT · WSDOT · PennDOT.
- P6 schedule options — what retained logic changes.
- Delay analysis methods compared · extension of time · concurrent delay.
- Schedule constraints · lags and leads · float ownership.
- Glossary — retained logic, open-ended activity, near critical.
- What the engine does and its limitations.
- The methods this project uses and the standards map.
Source: web/pages/cdot-scheduling.md. Source commit date: 2026-09-11.