Claims?

I have recently joined this forum and enjoyed some of the discussions. Claims is one of the most demanding areas of Project Management I have experienced in my 25 years in this field. The overall skillset required includes knowledge of CPM systems but by no means stops there. It is possible to recreate the scenario based on host of documents, if they are available. In my experience the following documents have proven to be of great help:



Initial documents:

The Original Program in any format

Manpower and other histograms

Projected S-curves

Contract documents



During the project execution stage:

Daily reports

Monthly reports

Program updates

Actutal resource levels including manpower

Submittal & Approval Logs



Inspection Tickets on the site

Relevant Correspondence



These documents will generally provide enough data to resolve the issues.



Dear Clive if that’s what you do for living then you must be having really GOOD patience!

To Clive Holloway



I am a student attempting to write a critical appraisal of the SCL delay and disruption protocol. Your previous comments are no longer available on the SCL website. I would very much like to hear your views or anyone elses for that matter. You can e-mail me at dstabler@yearle.fsnet.co.uk. Thanks in anticipation.



Denise Stabler

I am tired of delays being portrayed in model network analyses showing that this activity was delayed by 3 days,this activity for 2 weeks, etc.

It is just not that simple!



Take one day in the life of a project –

Assuming that this organised site knows what it wants to achieve that day by planning and setting targets the day or week before, so -



The work force arrives on site to work over a period ranging from say 7am to 9.30 am depending The work force is not up to full strength as some have not turned up for many reasons, so say 92% of the currently employed work force turn up.



It rains for an hour or so at 9am, this will affect production, but this will be different for each trade and possibly different for labour in the same trade.



The contractor issues various RFI’s - some urgent, some required next week or whatever.



The RE issues various verbal instructions on his site walk about at between 11am and 12noon. These verbal instructions are not confirmed in writing this day, and so the contractor is left in limbo.

The Architect issues some instructions.



The RE changes a detail at 4pm a concrete pour is consequentially missed.



Some CVI’s arrive from last week, the drawings are not updated.



The contractor requests that the drawings incorporate these changes.



Some drawings arrive at 3pm picking up a batch of VO’s CVI’s etc and need checking.



Deliveries of certain materials are a problem, tradesmen work on other work until materials arrive.



The power goes off for 10 minutes affecting several of the labour force.

ETC, ETC, ETC.



The days result is that production was down on what was anticipated



Who’s fault was it and was the contract completion date put in jeopardy ?

I am pleased that someone has read my comments and agreed with most of what I have said. I have only used common sense, my 25 years experience of planning and my understanding of Projects. Hopefully, the EOT debate will continue until some more appropriate guidelines can be developed.

I have now read some of your comments and would agree with all of what I read.
The issues are not black or white but a whole range of shades of grey. i.e. complex and variable according to each situation.
The Protocol was a starting point for research, although like yourself do not agree with all of what they suggest, but there is a lot in it for serious consideration.
You comments no doubt, hopefully, will be considered in the final?? document.

I wish I could make use of your generous offer, but it´s a bit far: I´m in Colombia, South America. From what you have told me, I'm sensing I could actually offer those services to contractors needing to support their claims. I have the planning and scheduling expertise to be able to perform such analysis. What additional background should I reinforce?

The most important thing with the analysis of claims is to establish what actually happened, just as you would if investigating a crime.

A contractor’s claim for an entitlement to an extension of time (EOT) could be based on actual or theoretical delay to the date for completion. It is quite common for a contractor to claim entitlement to an EOT for say 20 weeks when the date of completion was only 15 weeks late.



The entitlement to the 20 weeks EOT would be based on an impact analysis of delays upon the planned programme. This is then used to demonstrate acceleration, as the contractor would claim that he was entitled to finish 20 weeks late, but due to acceleration measures he only finished 15 weeks late.



However prolongation costs are always based on actual and not theorectical.

I have heavily criticised the SCL EOT protocol document, see my messages on the bulletin board of the web site www.eotprotocol.com.

I carry out forensic examination of projects for a living. Essentially I find out what actually happened, by building an as-built programme. Then I look at the delays and when they occurred in relation to the as-built. These delays can be removed to see when the project could have been completed if but for these delays. It is quite simple really. By the way, I am offering free help, after work for an hour only at 6pm in our Wanchai office, most weekdays.

Very briefly - Forensic Planning is a specialist field where Construction Planners are involved in the retrospective time-related analysis of Projects, analysing the delay and disruption that actually occurred, evaluating the programme effects and deterimining who was responsible.



It involves detective type work (hence forensic), ie, researching documents and interviewing key personnel that were involved in the project, etc.

Try the Society of Construction Law Protocol for EOT

Provided that you have good records it is very possible to recreate an as-built schedule to be used as the basis for a retrospective delay analysis, although this can be a time consuming task. There are a number of firms who specialise in this type of delay analysis.



Sadly, where schedules and formal planning have been neglected then record-keeping is often also poor.

There’s a knowledge field entirely new to me that looks quite interesting.

I wonder how feasible is it to do forensic planning in contracts were formal planning and scheduling have been neglected or even ignored entirely.



Can you apply forensics to come up with an as-built schedule where there was no real schedule in the first place? If that is so, there’s a great tool to support claims, that opens oportunities I would like to eplore. Can you enlighten me?

As a claims forensic planner, I think that I will be able to help you. What claims assistance do you require ?



Analysis of Delay and Disruption, EOT Entitlement, Programming Expert Witness, Etc.

Entitlement means the right a contractor has based on his contract to claim for an extension of time or additional cost or a combination of both.

What does entitlement mean?

I been involved with several claims, which have involved intensive forensic examination, of progress vs basline programmes in P3.



Biggest problem I have always has is making a fair assesemnt of entitlement based on the information availible.



Disscussion arond this would be good.