Is Delay Analysis Science or Art?

After scheduling for over 30 years and preparing expert reports for many of those, I find myself still learning on every project. I remember in one of my first dispute resolution cases, almost 25 years ago, a construction attorney I was working with told me, “You guys are half science and half voodoo.” The term “voodoo”, he explained, was a reference to the expertise of pulling something out of nothing, which I think he considered somewhat valuable. I prefer the term “art” for that practice. At the time I didn’t appreciate the implications of the statement. But I’ve learned that both science and art are part of the delay analysis process. The question is, where does the science start and where does the voodoo, or art, come in?

Most of my professional career has been spent trying to perfect the science of scheduling and delay analysis. The years I spent teaching in a university engineering program, with the preparation that that required, and the time training our firm’s scheduling staff, as well as client’s staff, has focused on this science aspect of scheduling and delay analysis. The answer to the art, however, didn’t come from a scheduling book. Instead, a significant portion of it has become obvious from my personal life. I studied history in school and have been a lover of history ever since. These days, I spend much more time reading history books than books on scheduling and delays. For years I thought my history background was a detriment to my resume, since most opposing experts were engineers. However, my studies in history has taught me a lot about preparing delay analyses. Not only do I see my reports as history papers, but I’ve discovered, from my studies in history, some great lessons on the art of delay analysis.

As a result, I don’t believe the science and art of delay analysis are as different as you might think. In a lot a ways historians and scheduling experts have the same challenges. Good historians learn to avoid anachronism - looking at history from the lens of current culture – and expend the effort to see historical events from a historical perspective. In the scheduling and delay analysis world we call the historical perspective the “Contemporaneous Time-Frame”.

Good delay experts must do the same thing as good historians. It’s not enough to get the analytics right if historical perspective is left out of it. The “science” is the analytical component; the historical perspective is the “art” that helps the analytics make sense. Thus, delay analyses are much more reliable when evaluating the contemporaneous schedules from the contemporaneous perspective.

One common delay analysis anachronism is adjusting Remaining Durations in Contemporaneous Schedules. This anachronistic approach occurs when analyses are prepared using contemporaneous schedules, but changing them by either increasing remaining durations of non-impacted activities (usually to argue concurrency) or reducing the remaining durations of impacted activities, usually to reduce delay impacts or remove them from the critical path altogether. If these revised durations were unknown contemporaneously, changing them after the fact often eliminates the contemporaneous aspect of the schedule. Another common delay analysis anachronism occurs when As-built schedule analyses are used without consideration of the contemporaneous schedules. Although as-built schedules are great at identifying the fact basis of when events occurred, they are not very effective in providing the historical perspective on why events occurred when they did. Without placing a priority on the contemporaneous perspective at the time of the delay, these analyses techniques and others risk credibility and the confusion they cause can be difficult to overcome.

The art of the analysis from the historical standpoint is seeing the delay from the contemporaneous perspective – what were the float values; what was the status of the scheduled completion compared to the contract completion?

An effective and honest delay analysis requires thinking through and evaluating what a contractor or owner was thinking and planning when the delay occurred. Working with project teams through the updating process is important to maintaining that awareness of how teams plan and manage their schedules. In other words, contemplating and deliberating analysis techniques are not always enough. The science of delay analysis is something you can learn in a book; the “art” comes from what is learned through practice. That’s why it is important for delay experts to stay active in projects. Although I spend most of my time on the dispute resolution side of our business, my team is active on hundreds of projects at any given time and I try to keep one or two ongoing projects on my plate. This interaction provides a constant reminder of the contemporaneous perspective in the construction process. Many of the experts I’ve worked with are excellent on the analytical side, but they don’t get the art, or they’ve forgotten it. While you’re learning the science of scheduling take time stay active and keep the artistic skill honed in.