After running into a couple of projects where the baseline schedule was submitted either without

a narrative or with a narrative that doesn't explain anything, I thought I'd post some thoughts.

The purpose of a narrative is to provide a summary of the work, explain the plan for
construction, show how the schedule meets contract requirements, summarize the critical path,
and discuss potential problems. Here are some of the topics that I would expect to see in a
baseline narrative:

 General description of the scope of work.

 Identification of any area designations.
 General description of the sequencing, including any necessary legend.
 Identification of any deviations from the contractually mandated sequencing.
 Identify any phasing, traffic control plan, or sequencing.
 Identification of all Milestones that are contractually mandated.
 Identification of any other Milestones.
 Risk management results, identification of problem areas of the project, and steps taken
to limit risk.
 Identify any road closings, or utility coordination shutdowns, or other conflicts.
 List and explain Calendars.
 Explain Adverse Weather planning methodology incorporated in the schedule.
 Identify any unusual logic relationships, such as Start-to-Start or Finish-to-Finish
Activity Types and rationale.
 Identify purpose and use of all relationship lags.
 Explain any Activity ID coding.
 Explain any Activity Coding that is not self-evident.
 Explain any Resources in the Resource Dictionary that are not self-evident, and general
resource usage and quantities.
 Provide an abbreviated description of the Critical Path.
 Provide an abbreviated description of the Near-Critical Path.
 Provide description of methodology used to monitor Non-Critical work (Earned Value,
Float Dissipation, activity variance, etc.)
 Specifically identify any Owner activities or provided items that are planned.
 Identify any procurement or fabrication problems/concerns.
 Identify all Date Constraints used in the schedule, with the Type and Date.
 Identify all Software Setting Constraints, such as Zero Total Float.
 Identify any potential conflicts with outside agencies, projects, or contractors.
 For Enterprise software, identify all Global or Enterprise settings used that may not
export correctly.
 Identify process used to validate as-built data