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Over Target Schedule

Over Target Schedule (OTS)

Government Standards Reviewed by forProject Technology - updated Sep 2026
Quick definition: An Over Target Schedule (OTS) is a project schedule that has been formally reprogrammed so that work, and the budgets time-phased against it, extend beyond the contract's milestones or completion date.

When a project slips far enough that the baseline dates are no longer achievable, measuring performance against them stops telling anyone anything useful. An OTS resets those dates to something realistic so the numbers mean something again. It comes out of Formal Reprogramming — the same process that produces an Over Target Baseline on the cost side — and it takes formal approval and a documented Baseline Change Request, not just a decision by the project team. The contract itself doesn't move: delivery dates, terms, and conditions all stay as they were, and only the internal measurement dates change.

Why it matters

An OTS lets a project keep meaningful schedule performance metrics even after the original dates have slipped, rather than measuring against a schedule everyone knows is no longer realistic.

Also known as
N/A
Used in
Formal Reprogramming; performance measurement after a baseline breach; Baseline Change Request documentation

FAQ

How is an OTS different from an OTB?
An OTB extends the performance budget beyond the negotiated contract cost; an OTS extends the schedule beyond the contract milestones or delivery dates — one addresses cost, the other schedule.
Does an OTS change the contract's delivery date?
No — it's a management tool for realistic performance measurement, separate from the contractual delivery dates themselves.
Definition maintained by forProject Technology.
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