Let me explain: The Project Manager is responsible for the schedule. I am simply reporting on whether we are meeting the schedule or not. Now if you wanted me to speculate on delays, I might point out that the one resource assigned to a task on the critical path has been in a meeting with the PM all morning. So I suspect at the afternoon status meeting to report that we are, in fact, behind schedule. Then, maybe, someone -- meaning "not me", someone whose performance evaluation is more directly tied to deadline than quality, and who might that be? -- will have an idea for getting back on schedule. But I doubt it.