In the engineering and construction industry, contract claims, and disputes are common issues. They occur between owners and contractors, contractors and their subcontractors, contractors, and vendors. Resolution of the claims and disputes can be an adversarial and costly process for all parties.
This session discusses the causes and types of claims, the procedures by owners and contractors to avoid claims, and methods to quantify and resolve claims. The session will discuss:
- Current trends
- Claim components
- Claim preparation
- Claim evaluation and response
- Causes of claims:
- Claims pertaining to quality
- Change in design
- Change in site/subsoil conditions
- Claims pertaining to quantity
- Increased quantities
- Extra work
- Measurement of work performed
- Ambiguous specification
- Unreasonably demanding inspection
- Design enhancement via the shop drawings approval process
- Deficiencies, re-work/performance
- Claims pertaining to methods or schedule of the work
- Delays
- Acceleration
- Disruption
- Interference
- Owner’s avoidance of claims:
- Contracting strategies
- Risk allocation/risk management
- Project administration
- Usual pitfalls
- What to watch out for:
- Counter claims
- Dispute resolution mechanism
- Negotiation
- Mediation
- Dispute resolution board
- Arbitration
- Litigation
- Recognize the most frequently encountered construction claims,
- Claim preparation and evaluation: performing a claim analysis and assessment,
- Techniques for keeping the situation from escalating too far,
- Best practices in selecting solutions to resolve claims situations efficiently, and
- Tips for avoiding claims before they happen.
While the contract establishes the legal relationships, the team building and partnering process is designed to establish working relationships among the parties through a mutually-developed formal strategy of commitment and communication. It attempts to create an environment where trust and teamwork prevent disputes, foster a cooperative bond to everyone's benefit, and facilitate the completion of a successful project.
- Forge common goals and objectives,
- Establish working relationships,
- Create an environment of trust and teamwork,
- Foster a cooperative bond, and facilitate the successful completion of a project, and
- Create mechanisms to sustain and expand collaboration.
- Problems and barriers that have prevented collaborations on past projects.
- Project vision:
- Project goal,
- In scope and out scope,
- Project milestone schedule,
- Success criteria,
- Critical success factors,
- Project org. structure, and
- Project risks, assumptions, and stakeholders.
- Teamwork:
- Health check,
- Issue/dispute resolution mechanism,
- Ground rules, and
- Roles/responsibilities.
- Better understand and apply team partnering and alignment concepts on their next project,
- Develop a mindset that is aligned and focused by improving alignment of goals across and between organizations,
- Better plan and commit to timelines, yielding better results,
- Create buy-in by everyone to achieving the goals of the organization/project,
- Develop project goals and objectives,
- Develop team ground rules,
- Develop a Performance Evaluation Mechanism for evaluating team relationships and performance (Health Check Mechanism), and
- Develop an Issue Resolution Mechanism for resolution of issues and disputes in a timely manner.
- “Excellent, dynamic, knowledgeable speaker. Very good examples. Lots of applicable examples. Very good case studies.”
- “Excellent seminar.”
Professor, Project Management, University of Calgary
George is a Professor of the Project Management in the Schulich School of Engineering at the University of Calgary, where he is involved in both the teaching of and research into project management since 1994. He has forty years of work experience, principally in infrastructure projects and claims and disputes. He is also an active project management consultant, trainer and coach for both public and private sector organizations in Canada and has provided extensive project management services to many Canadian, American and international companies. He has worked with project teams in oil sands development, hospitals, roads and bridges, tunnelling, LRT expansions and mining projects. List of clients include CNRL, Husky, Chevron, EnCana, Keyera, Flint, PennWest, APEGA, City of Calgary, City of Edmonton and the District of North Vancouver.
As a claims consultant investigating numerous construction projects, both in Canada and the USA, George gained insight into the fundamental causes of project success and failure.
Through his experience and research, George has developed a strong interest in improving project success founded upon improving the effectiveness of project teams. George’s work focuses on improving project alignment, building and sustaining project teams, cost overruns, and construction productivity on mega oil and gas projects.
