Delay Triage

A delay is asserted, a letter is drafted, and the position taken in the first week is the position everyone is stuck with. The three questions that decide it get merged into one argument, and they have different answers: is something late, does it matter to the end date, and whose fault is it.

Workflow

Step 1. Establish what baseline this is measured against

Ask, in one message:

1. Is there an accepted baseline programme? Accepted by whom, when, and was it ever formally accepted or just received?
2. What is the current schedule, and what has changed in its logic since the baseline? Point at schedule-review.
3. What exactly is asserted: which activity, how many days, and against what?
4. Quote the contract on delay: what is excusable, what is compensable, what notice is required and by when, and who owns float.
5. Has notice been given, in the form the contract requires, within the time it requires?
6. What is the record: RFI log, submittal log, instructions, site records, weather. Point at rfi-tracker and submittal-log-builder.

No accepted baseline means no measurable delay, and it is the most common finding. Say so plainly and early. Everything after it is provisional.

The notice question is asked second because it is often decisive. A valid entitlement lost for want of notice is common on both sides.

Step 2. Answer the three questions separately

Never as one:

Question	Answer	Evidence	Confidence
Is the activity late?		Against which baseline
Was it on the critical path?		At the time, not now
Who caused it?

• Late is measurable against a baseline, and only against one.
• Critical is the question that most delays fail. An activity with float that ran over cost nobody anything, and the contract usually says who owned that float. Note also that the critical path moves: what mattered in March may not have mattered in June, and the test is whether it was critical at the time.
• Caused by is separate from both. An activity can be late, critical, and nobody's fault.

Report each with its own confidence. A delay that is late but not critical usually ends the conversation, and getting there fast is the point of this.

Step 3. Sort the cause honestly

Cause	Who	Evidence in the record

Work through: a late instruction or a late response from the design team (check the RFI and submittal logs against the contract's response periods, and point at schedule-review which finds durations shorter than the contract allows), a client decision or change, a differing site condition, weather beyond what the contract allows for, a third party or utility, the contractor's own resourcing, sequencing or procurement, and concurrency where two causes ran at once.

Concurrent delay is where these arguments live, and it is treated differently by different contracts and different jurisdictions. Name it when it is present and hand it to the attorney rather than resolving it.

Be honest where the cause is the design team's. A triage that cannot find its own side's fault is a triage nobody should rely on, and the record will show it anyway.

Step 4. Say what the contract makes of it

Against the quoted provisions, for each cause:

Cause	Excusable?	Compensable?	Notice given?	Clause

Three different things, routinely merged:

• Excusable means the contractor is not liable for it. Time may be granted.
• Compensable means money follows. Fewer causes are compensable than excusable.
• Neither means the contractor absorbs it.

Never assert an answer the quoted text does not support. Where the contract is silent or ambiguous, say so and hand it over.

Step 5. Say what to do this week

Triage exists to produce actions, not a position:

• What to record now, before it is lost: site conditions, resourcing on site, what the schedule showed at the time, who said what.
• Whether notice is due from your side, and by when.
• Whether a formal analysis is warranted, and what it would cost.
• What not to write yet. The first letter sets the position, and a letter conceding or asserting before the three questions are answered is the most expensive document in the file.
• Who to bring in: the scheduler, the attorney.

Step 6. Report

• Whether there is an accepted baseline, first.
• The three questions with separate answers and confidences.
• The cause table, including the design team's own contribution.
• The contract position, with anything the text does not support marked open.
• The actions for this week, and what not to write yet.

Close by saying no analysis was performed and no entitlement was determined.

Step 7. Save

Ask where. This is read back in a dispute, and its value is that it was written before anyone took a position.

Rules

• Answer late, critical and caused-by as three separate questions.
• Say plainly when there is no accepted baseline.
• Test criticality at the time, not against the current schedule.
• Never assert entitlement. Quote the clause or mark it open.
• Name the design team's own contribution where there is one.
• Name concurrency and hand it over rather than resolving it.
• Say what not to write yet.

Anti-patterns

• Arguing entitlement before establishing criticality.
• Measuring against the current schedule rather than the baseline.
• Treating excusable and compensable as the same thing.
• Missing that notice was never given.
• A triage that finds no fault on its own side.
• Resolving concurrency.
• Writing the letter first and working out the position afterwards.
• Assuming float belongs to whoever needs it.

Resources

None. This skill is one file. Output is written directly at the path you choose.