Critical path and float, resource levelling when two tasks want the same person, earned value in plain terms, forecasting a finish date from progress to date, and why estimates drift.

The step up from building a schedule to defending one. Written for readers whose plans are now large enough that the arithmetic stops being obvious.

You can say which tasks actually matter to the end date, forecast completion from real progress rather than optimism, and explain a cost variance in terms of what caused it.

Schedule compression and what it really costs, recovery planning, cost baselines under change control, contingency versus management reserve, and reading a schedule for optimism rather than errors.

For people controlling schedule and cost on work with real financial consequences, where a late forecast is itself a problem.

By the end of this level you can compress a schedule knowing what you are trading away, rebuild a credible forecast after a slip, and challenge an estimate without having built it yourself.

Estimating methods and where each one misleads, structural causes of overrun, benchmarking across projects, deciding what to measure, and the limits of control when the scope is genuinely unknown.

The deepest treatment, aimed at readers who set estimating and control standards for others and answer for the numbers at the top of the organisation.

The level leaves you able to set how estimates are produced and challenged across a group of projects, distinguish a genuinely unpredictable project from a badly run one, and defend a number you did not calculate.