AEC definitions
A look-ahead schedule is a short-horizon plan, commonly three weeks, that says what crews will do, what must be delivered, and which inspections must happen. The superintendent uses it to coordinate. It should be consistent with the baseline schedule. It does not replace the baseline, and it is not, by itself, a delay analysis.
Definition
Each week the team drops the expired week, adds a new one, and checks constraints: drawings approved, materials on site, predecessor complete, inspector booked. Work that is not ready is not scheduled as if it were. That make-ready step is the point. A look-ahead that lists everything the baseline hoped for, without checking constraints, is a wish. Pull planning and last-planner practices use look-aheads this way. The contractual CPM remains the baseline.
In depth
For each activity, ask whether the submittal is approved, the material is released, the predecessor is actually done, and the inspection is scheduled. If the answer is no, the activity stays off the look-ahead or is flagged.
Putting unready work on the plan trains the trades to ignore the plan.
Foremen commit to the week. The superintendent removes conflicts. Decisions that need the project manager, such as an unpaid extra, are sent out of the room into the change process. The look-ahead is not a place to approve scope.
Write the commitments down. Next week's meeting starts by comparing them to what happened.
If the look-ahead slips an activity that is critical, the monthly update must show it. Running a cheerful three-week plan while the CPM shows negative float is two projects. One of them is fiction.
The baseline's activity names should be recognizable on the look-ahead so the connection is obvious.
A stack of look-aheads shows what the field intended. It rarely has the logic a delay analyst needs.
Keep it. Do not let it become the only schedule on the job.
Examples
The three-week look-ahead lists a slab pour only after rebar inspection is booked and the vapor barrier is on site.
A promised duct delivery misses. The next look-ahead pulls that work off and the monthly update shows the slip.
Foremen review last week's commitments before they take new ones.
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