Retrospective method
Daily delay measure
Compare planned against actual at daily resolution across a maintained as-built model.
- Jurisdiction
- General method guidance, not jurisdiction specific
- Law and editions as at
- 3 August 2026
- Last reviewed
- 3 August 2026
- Editorial status
- Editorial draft, not yet independently reviewed
The question it answers
Where, day by day, did the works diverge from the plan?
High-resolution analysis of projects with genuinely reliable daily records, typically process, rail or infrastructure work with disciplined data capture.
Minimum evidence
- Reliable daily records across the whole period
- A maintained as-built model at the same resolution
- Consistent activity coding between the record and the programme
This is the most data-hungry method on the list, and the least forgiving of gaps. On the small number of projects that capture daily production properly it is powerful. On the rest it produces a chart that looks authoritative and proves very little.
Where it is used, state the completeness of the daily record explicitly, including the days that are missing.
Strengths
- Makes incremental divergence visible instead of averaging it away
- Hard to argue with where the underlying daily data is genuinely sound
Frequent failures
- Granularity creating false precision on a project whose records cannot support it
- Daily noise mistaken for delay
- Responsibility inferred from divergence alone
Mandatory caution
Precision is not accuracy. Establish the event, the responsibility and the entitlement separately: a daily measure shows divergence, not cause.
Other methods
Where the record comes in
Every mechanism on this page turns on evidence: what happened, what was known and when. A record built as the job happens is worth more than any argument assembled afterwards. Construction Metric keeps that record automatically, from the messages, photographs and voice notes a site team already sends.
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Do not overread this page
No method decides entitlement, and no method is court approved. A method is fit when it answers the relevant question with the reliable data available, respects the contract and the governing law, and survives alternative explanations. The choice must be explained and defended, not asserted.
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.