TRAINING.

Overview

After participating in this course, you will be able to:

• Implement upfront dispute resolution planning during the design, bidding, and construction phases to prevent disputes at the end of the project.
• Conduct comprehensive reviews of contract documents, including scheduling specifications and payment for changes articles.
• Reduce claims based on large numbers of RFIs through effective document management and preemptive strategies.
• Pre-purchase owner-caused delay and lock in daily delay costs at the time of bidding to minimize disputes.
• Utilize techniques to predict and manage weather impacts on the project to avoid delays and related claims.
• Resolve issues proactively during the project to avoid arbitration or litigation, ensuring smoother project completion.

Description
Construction projects are fertile breeding grounds for construction claims and disputes – unless everything on the project proceeds exactly as planned.

To avoid all claims, there must be no changes, no delays, no shortage of qualified craft labour, no late delivery of equipment and materials, no bad weather, etc. It is highly unlikely that anyone has ever built this project in history. However, claims (requests for additional time or money under the provisions of the contract) do not have to result in disputes. Disputes arise when contractors and owners cannot resolve claims by negotiation and turn unresolved issues over to attorneys to resolve them in the legal arena. This webinar is designed to show owners and their representatives how disputes can be avoided at the end of the project through upfront dispute resolution planning during the design, bidding, and construction phases of a project.

The webinar discusses four types of reviews that should be applied to contract documents: the need for a comprehensive scheduling specification and payment for changes article; how to reduce claims based on large numbers of RFIs; how to pre-purchase owner-caused delay and lock in daily delay costs at the time of bidding; how to predict the weather for the project, and other techniques designed to precludes disputes at the end of the project by resolving issues without going to arbitration or litigation. 

Who Should Attend

• Owners
• Design professionals
• Owner site representatives
• Construction managers
• Attorneys
• Contractors
• Subcontractors 

Please note: You can check other time zones here.

Syllabus

Why You Should Attend:
Webinar attendees will have a better understanding of how owners, designers and owner representatives can structure project documents to provide for the resolution of claims on projects and avoid legal disputes at the end. Attendees will get concrete ideas on how to craft an appropriate Scheduling specification, a Change Order payment specification, an Escrow Bid Document system, a Dispute Resolution Ladder system, a Delegation of Authority, a Project Trending System, etc. These ideas and more are intended to provide mechanisms to manage and resolve construction claims on the site.

Areas Covered In The Webinar:

Attendees will -

• Learn the value of planning how to avoid disputes from the beginning of the project.
• Understand the “ins and outs” of a comprehensive Scheduling specification.
• Become knowledgeable about the value and use of a thoroughly drafted Payment for Changes clause.
• Learn some new ways to mitigate delay damages and avoid the need for difficult cost negotiations and audits in the event of an owner-caused delay.
• Gain insight into ways to resolve claims on the projects and avoid the need to close out projects in a courtroom or arbitration hearing room.

Course Outline

• Introduction
• Purpose of webinar
• Claims mitigation during the design and bid phases
• Claims mitigation during the construction phase
• Claims mitigation during the construction phase
• How to avoid disputes - owner’s perspective
• Conclusion

Instructor

Jim is the Senior Advisor to the recently formed Ankura Construction Forum™.

The Forum strives to be the construction industry’s resource for thought leadership and best practices on global avoidance and resolution of construction project disputes. Jim was the founder and Executive Director of the Navigant Construction Forum™. Formerly he was the Executive Director of Corporate Claims Management Group, Fluor Corporation, one of the world’s largest EPCM contractors. Before this, Jim was Vice President of PinnacleOne, Executive Director of the PinnacleOne Institute, and Senior Construction Claims Consultant for CH2M HILL, Inc.

For 46 years, he has worked on private and public projects throughout the U.S. and in 28 countries abroad. Jim has worked for contractors and owners on over 5,000 claims in his career. He is a Fellow of AACE International, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and the International Guild of Project Controls. He is a recognized and published expert in the mitigation, analysis and resolution of defense of construction claims and disputes in the construction claims field.

Jim is a Certified Construction Manager (CCM), a Certified Forensic Claims Consultant (CFCC), and a Project Management Professional (PMP).