Construction Scheduling: Tips for Avoiding Delay Claims

When embarking on a construction project, teams need to plan the work and work the plan. Though the advice is simple it can become anything but simple when dealing with the wide-ranging challenges present in today's design and construction industry.

The importance of planning and scheduling is crucial to the project as it serves as a proactive management tool from point of beginning to completion. There is no way to short-cut the process and come out successful on the other side as disputes can quickly arise if teams fail to deliver on agreed requirements and expectations, often resulting in delay claims.

The solution comes in making sure the fundamentals are covered at the onset of a project. Here are some easy tips to follow:

1. Contractually set stakeholder expectations with the development and implementation of a comprehensive scheduling specification. Conformance to this specification must be monitored on a routine basis throughout the project to ensure sustained accountability.
2. Collaborate on the preparation, review and timely acceptance by the team of the baseline schedule including coding, logic, labor resources and cost loading.
3. Establish a miimum number of monthly schedule updates that conform to contractual requirements and present a schedule narrative that includes an overview of all logic changes to the schedule.
4. Assign an objective project stakeholder to perform routine schedule analysis and assessment metrics that ensure full transparency to schedule management and execution performance.
5. Perform a quality Time-Impact-Analysis (TIA) as required when potential deviations or delays arise to support a proactive decision-making process that circumvents costly disputes.

As with all things it is difficult to anticipate the unexpected, but a project team can do its best to prepare for project disruptions by putting in the proper planning time on the front end to lessen the impact of surprises on the process thus saving them from unwanted delay claims.

Are you planning a new construction project or renovation? The NV5 Program Management Team can help. To learn more to contact Mark Seifried, Managing Director for NV5 at 440-809-8418 or email [e-mail]. Visit our website at www.nv5.com/services/program-management.