Managing Schedule Contingency

Overview

At many of the training sessions I’ve taught, I’ve received a lot of questions about how to handle contingency. This is a great topic to share. Let’s start with a short explanation of the different types of contingency. Sources may differ but they tend to define two general types of contingency:

• Contingency Reserve: The cost or timeline that is allocated above the estimate to reduce the risk of potential overruns.
• Management Reserve: The cost or timeline that is allocated above the agreed upon project cost (including reserve) to account for situations that cannot be predicted.