It occurred to me while traveling to one of the two fabulous casinos in Connecticut that one aspect of making construction projects successful is very similar to making money at the casino. In casinos, with the exception of the lucky, it is the professionals that do the best at the tables. How do they do it? [...]

I wrote here a year ago letting you know that the Association for the Advancement of Cost Engineering International (“AACEI”) was seeking input and updating its Recommended Practice No. 29R-03 Forensic Schedule Analysis, which strives to “provide a unifying reference of basic technical principles and guildelines for the application of critical path method (CPM) scheduling [...]

Despite what many owners believe, most contractors are not “claims-conscious” nor are they skilled at it. Fortunately, they are usually much better at building things than constructing claims. As a result, contractors often do not understand the owner’s need for substantiation when dealing with claims and take short-cuts or otherwise prepare claims that are unclear, [...]

Imagine this: A contractor suffers significant cost overruns on a long, difficult, and delayed project. There is a finger pointing from the start to finish and by the end of construction there is much resentment and distrust between the owner, design professional and contractor. Each of them has been severely wounded by the job and blame [...]

Forensic schedule analysts, particularly in adversarial situations, often reach different conclusions using the same set of facts.  In my experience, significant differences often arise from well-meaning, inexperienced practitioners who use a delay analysis method that is not appropriate for a particular situation or who improperly implement a particular analytical method.  I have also seen many [...]