Timing of Analysis
Prospective analyses are performed in real-time, prior to the delay event, or where the analysis takes place, in real-time, with the delay event. In all cases prospective analysis consists of the analyst’s best estimate of future events.
Prospective analysis occurs while the project is still underway and may not evolve into a forensic context.
Retrospective analyses are performed after the delay event has occurred and the impacts are known.
The timing may be soon after the delay event but prior to the completion of the overall known project, or after the completion of the entire project.
Under many contracts the term ‘delay’ is not defined and is used with a variety of different meanings.
The lack of a clear definition of the word ‘delay’ in many contracts often leads to confusion when discussing the effects of delays, particularly when addressing concurrency. Confusion typical leads to the involvement of Third parties ie. delay specialists (schedule analysis and legal teams) on the owners side and contractors side.
A clearer definition in contract documents of how delays will be recorded and assessed would seem a logical and cost efficient way to resolve delay claims with minimal Third party involvement.
To simplify the discussion of delay in general we adopt the following terminology:
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An ‘Event’ is any issue under consideration.
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A ‘Delaying Event’ is an Event that did (or may have) delayed one or more activities on the Project.
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A ‘Critical Delay’ is a Delaying Event that has been found, by analysis, to have caused a delay to the completion of the Project or the Works.
The ‘Cause’ of an Event, be it delaying or not may be in a different time period to the Event the subject of analysis.
For example, in the case of a variation involving additional work the Cause would be the direction to vary the works and the Event would be the actual additional work itself.
Other terminology
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Total Float is the amount of time an activity may be delayed without delaying the project end date.
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Free Float is the amount of time an activity may be delayed without delaying the start date of another successor activity
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Contingency – is an amount of time allocated to an activity to allow for risk factors such as inclement weather or Industrial disputes. (represented as a separate bar).
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Concurrency – is where two or more events are thought to be incurred at the same time and either overlap or partly overlap.