This recommended practice (RP) for schedule design is intended to provide a guideline, not to establish a standard. As a recommended practice of AACE International, this document provides guidelines for the project scheduler to start the planning for developing a baseline schedule and is applicable only as a precursor to the development of the baseline schedule.

This recommended practice is oriented to critical path method (CPM) schedule design. This recommended practice does not address schedule development but instead provides the framework to enable an efficient and accurate facilitation of the schedule development process. All schedule development should be done after this schedule design process is complete since the completion of design is necessary before a good schedule development process can progress effectively.