Executive series
The executive series
Written for the people who hold the commercial position while the job is running, rather than for the analysts who arrive years later. One argument runs through all three: the claim is built, weakened or destroyed by the project’s daily system of decisions, long before anybody calls it a claim.
- One. The claim is built before the disputeQuantum and delay as lifecycle management disciplines: the bid, mobilisation, the event-control loop, forecasting in ranges, and closeout that reconciles rather than starts.
- Two. The evidential architecture of contemporaneous recordsWhy claims fail and why they succeed, read through decided cases in England, Australia, California and Singapore, and what a record a tribunal can test actually looks like.
- Three. One project, one commercial truthThe operating alliance between commercial, operational and planning teams: four accountabilities, the daily, weekly and monthly cadence, and nine measures a board can actually use.
How the series is sourced
Primary judgments and official standards are treated as authority. Professional guidance from the Society of Construction Law, RICS, AACE International and ASCE is treated as guidance, which is what it is. Consultancy and platform publications are treated as practitioner or vendor commentary. Jurisdiction, contract wording and appellate status remain decisive throughout, and where a case is under appeal the page says so.
The voice
The series is written in the collective voice of the disciplines it describes: commercial managers, quantity surveyors, planners, project directors, delay analysts and quantum specialists. It does not claim that one author holds three hundred years of lived experience. It applies the disciplines such a panel would insist on: contract before calculation, facts before advocacy, causation before valuation, and jurisdiction before generalisation.
Our interest, stated plainly
This site is published by AI Metric, which builds bespoke automation and AI systems, alongside Construction Metric, which sells record-keeping software. The series argues that contemporaneous records decide most claims. That is a conclusion we reached from the cases, and it is also a conclusion that suits us commercially. Both things are true, so we say so here rather than leaving you to notice.
Built by AI Metric
The analysis on this site is only as fast as the evidence behind it. AI Metric builds bespoke systems for consultancies, contractors and claims teams: document and correspondence triage, event registers assembled from the project record, programme and cost reconciliation, and drafting support that always cites the document it came from. Built for review by your own experts, never to replace their judgement.
General explanation of how contract mechanisms, analysis methods and legal principles generally work. It is not legal or contractual advice, not an opinion on any project, and no standard-form contract wording is reproduced anywhere on this site. Standard forms are routinely amended, so every default described here, including every time period, can be different on your project. Your executed contract, as amended, and the governing law and forum always control. Deadlines may already be running: if an event has occurred, preserve your position and take qualified advice.