Forensic Planning / Claims

Overview

When project teams find themselves looking back rather than forward, things may not be going to plan.

Plan Ahead's experienced team has worked both on the client and contractor side of project delivery. This insight facilitates a balanced approach to understanding how to support a contractual claim through forensic planning to ensure our clients can demonstrate their commercial position.

The Detail

Plan Ahead uses its experienced senior team to establish a robust strategy from the outset of any forensic / claims work. Plan Ahead collaborates with all parties to ensure both sides agree upon this high-level strategy before the analysis starts.
This ensures the detailed assessment stages and overall timeline are not impacted by dramatic changes or challenges that might de-rail the part-completed future works. This strategic approach has benefited many of our clients to achieve a successful conclusion of their claims in a timely manner.
Plan Ahead uses time chainage successfully to demonstrate high-level change/cause and effect on large linear projects.
The overall impact still needs to be demonstrated in the Gantt chart software via critical path analysis, but the time chainage one-page view can be very effective in explaining the summary of the impacts in a graphical format.
Plan Ahead understands how to develop claim programmes that recognise the contracted terms in the main construction contracts.
Before progressing with any forensic planning/claim, the base programme must be robust, dynamic and contractually compliant. Where necessary, Plan Ahead will take a pragmatic approach to repair the base programme while agreeing on the amendments with all parties. All programme amendments are individually tracked and recorded to ensure a fully transparent process.
Plan Ahead spends time at the outset of a claim to ensure the ongoing claim development is built from a strong foundation position.
Plan Ahead understands the need for Claim programmes to be able to 'tell the story' of what occurred. It isn't enough for the programme to be just contractually compliant.
Many of the claims Plan Ahead supports are very complex, with multiple events occurring over a considerable period. Plan Ahead adopts a very structured approach, stepping through the timeline of events to re-create a story of what happened, when, and the ongoing cause and effect created.
Further support is provided through several formats to give a summary narrative that helps key decision-makers understand the key issues.
Plan Ahead has developed a suite of visualisation solutions for all our client's needs. These include high-level summary programmes, phasing plans, logistic plans and animated slide shows.
The key is to provide graphics that inform the reviewer of the summary story being demonstrated within seconds of them reading it - we call this 'the 10-second rule.'
If a graphic is overly complicated or badly laid out or labelled, it is unlikely the reader will understand it within the first 10 seconds. This is likely to result in the summary position not being accepted.