Total float is the time an activity can slip without moving the completion date. On a well-built schedule it is a measure of resilience. On a poorly governed program it is a resource that the first party to need it simply takes.
The question of who owns float sounds academic until a delay event lands on a path with thirty days of it. If the owner's late design change consumes that float, has the contractor been harmed? If the contractor's slow excavation consumed it first, does the owner's later change now drive the completion date? The answer often decides who pays.
Three common positions
Contracts tend to adopt one of three stances, explicitly or by silence:
- The project owns the float: it is shared and available to whichever party needs it first
- The contractor owns the float: it reflects means and methods and the owner's delays consume it at the owner's cost
- Float is allocated: specific amounts are reserved, or float is tracked and apportioned by party
Each has merit. The problem arises when the contract says nothing, and the parties discover their different assumptions in the middle of a claim.
Float that nobody owns is float that somebody will spend without permission.
Sequestration is the quiet risk
Float can be consumed without a single delay event. Preferential logic, inflated durations and hard constraints can hide float from the owner at baseline, leaving a schedule where everything looks near-critical and every owner change appears to drive the date. A rigorous baseline review is the owner's first line of defense, because float that is not visible cannot be governed.
What owners should write into the contract
- A clear statement of float ownership and how it is consumed
- A prohibition on float-suppression techniques without justification
- Time impact analysis as the required method for extension requests, using the current accepted update
- A requirement that schedule contingency be shown explicitly, not buried in durations
- A defined process and timescale for reviewing and accepting updates
Watch it every period
Contract language only works if float is tracked. A monthly view of float erosion on the near-critical paths, alongside the critical path itself, shows which parts of the program are losing resilience and why. It is one of the simplest indicators to produce and one of the most predictive.
We will return to float, and to the contract terms that govern time, in future editions of The Data Date.
