Good Practice Guidance for Selecting Delay Analysis Methods

Abstract

The appropriateness of delay analysis methods (DAMs) has been at the core of disagreements over delay assessments during the past decades. Delay experts continue to disagree over their suitability while not offering best or good practice guidance. Scholars are critical of their performance while not proposing pragmatically superior DAMs. Judges do not deal with this issue while insisting that the parties should accept the DAMs and indicating that the DAMs should be accurate, effective, and harmonized with contracts. However, the parties are heavily reliant on expert advice and model agreements, which do not offer adequate delay analysis terms, although contract terms are not only well-established legal instruments but also a requisite for clear risk allocation and certainty. While the need for an effective DAM selection model in this context is obvious, such a model has not been offered. Instead, guidance on a set of endorsed DAMs has been provided, but legal systems continue to generate disputes over delay assessments. This paper evaluates published literature and contributes to the fulfilment of this knowledge gap by offering a DAM selection model that is based on six recognized DAMs and is instrument-based, precision-oriented, impartial, effective, and coordinated with legal systems and construction contracts.