MOST IMPORTANT ISSUE IN SCHEDULING: CONTINGENCY. Why? Estimates & Budgets have it quantified. But how do you put it in a schedule? and if you don't you get issues like being "behind" on a 3 year project the first month - or of course you start chipping away those days from a whole bunch of places instead of "contingency". And if you have your original schedule ending a month early, ie a month float - that is generally "not allowed" but if it is then you have the widely popular trend of forcing a 0 float path through the path of the critical even though it is ending early which destroys the whole purpose of "float", and make any monthly comparisons worthless because you are moving the end date a little bit each month to keep it 0. My solution would require a change in the software allowing a contingency pool on some items - basically forcing you to predict where you will steal those days from, but contractors would not like having to provide that. Having "a contingency item" at the end destoys the point of float. All of your items are basically potentially "off" by that much. I searched this issue and the last post was from 2008. What is your solution?