Prospective method
Impacted as-planned
Insert the delay events into the baseline programme and read off the revised completion date.
- 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
What would these events have done to the plan, taken on its own terms?
Early, low-value or simple assessments, and as an illustrative cross-check rather than a primary retrospective analysis.
Minimum evidence
- A robust baseline programme
- Supported delay events capable of being modelled as insertions
The method has a bad reputation it has partly earned, but its real problem is misuse rather than existence. Used early, on a simple job, to illustrate the likely direction of an event, it is proportionate. Used years later, on a complex project with a full as-built record, to prove causation, it is asking a tribunal to prefer a plan over the facts.
If the baseline itself is contested, the method has no foundation at all. Validate the baseline first, or say plainly that it could not be validated.
Strengths
- Simple, cheap and easy to explain to a non-technical reader
- Transparent: every input is visible
Frequent failures
- Tests the events against a plan rather than against what was happening on site
- Assumes the baseline was achievable and ignores contractor delay entirely
- Ignores everything else that changed during the works
Mandatory caution
Generally weak for complex retrospective attribution. Presenting it as a complete answer where a dynamic record exists invites the criticism that the analysis avoided the evidence.
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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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.
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.