What is a 3-week look-ahead?
A 3-week look-ahead is a short-interval schedule that zooms in on the near term: this week plus the next two. Where the master schedule shows the whole project, the look-ahead is the working plan a superintendent actually manages from — the crews that need to be staffed, the deliveries that have to land on time, the inspections that have to be booked, and the hand-offs between trades that cause conflicts when they collide.
Done weekly, it's one of the most effective ways to keep a job on track, because it surfaces problems while there's still time to fix them.
How to use it
- Update it weekly. Roll the window forward every week so you're always looking three weeks ahead.
- Plan by trade and area. List the activities coming up and map them across the three weeks.
- Flag dependencies. Note deliveries, inspections, and trade hand-offs — that's where conflicts hide.
- Share it. A look-ahead is only useful if your crews and subs see it.