The target completion date (TCD) is the date by which all phases of a project are meant to be finished. It is a deadline that comes from outside the schedule, from a contract, a market window, a regulation, or a promise, rather than a date the schedule model calculated.
How It Works in Practice
Two dates matter and they are not the same. The TCD is what was committed. The calculated finish date is what the network logic, durations, and resources actually produce. Planning work consists largely of closing the gap between them, through schedule compression such as crashing or fast tracking, through scope decisions, or by renegotiating the date. Once the plan is approved, the committed date is carried in the schedule baseline and progress is reported against that. A TCD that was never achievable does not become achievable by being repeated in status reports; it only moves the bad news later.
Where It Fits in PMBOK 8
The PMBOK Guide 8 does not carry “target completion date” as a glossary term, so do not expect it in exam wording. The underlying idea appears in quantitative risk analysis: a simulation produces a probability distribution of completion dates, and the useful question becomes how likely the project is to finish by a given target date, for example a 90 percent probability by a stated day. That is a more honest statement than a single committed date, and it is the form in which the PMBOK Guide 8 discusses target dates.
FAQ
How does the TCD differ from the baseline finish date? The baseline finish date is the approved schedule result; the TCD is the externally committed deadline. They coincide only when the plan was built to meet the commitment and was approved that way.
What if the schedule finishes later than the TCD? Compress, reduce scope, add resources, or move the date. Reporting the TCD while the schedule says otherwise is the one option that solves nothing.
Is the TCD a single date? It is committed as one, but it is better understood as a confidence level. Risk analysis gives the probability of meeting it.
By Tom, PMP-certified since 2004. Last updated: September 2026