Change Order Requests

Changes may affect the work being priced and the surrounding sequence. A contract-administration review can examine change notices, time information, reservation language recorded in submissions and the way the parties processed the request.

A request may document scope, cost and time effects using the available records. From a contractor project manager’s perspective, the review may consider notice records, change submissions, schedule information and how the request moved through the project’s administrative process.

A change order request is a pricing document and a records document at the same time, and the second half is what usually decides it. Establishing that the work was outside the original scope, that it was directed or constructively required, and that the cost follows from it, is a documentary exercise long before it is an arithmetic one.

Scope is the argument underneath most disputed changes. Whether something was included is answered by the contract documents read together, drawings, specifications and the scope description, and the answer is frequently less obvious than either side initially believes. Setting out that reading explicitly, rather than assuming it, is what makes a request testable.

A change may have both cost and time effects. Contract-administration records can show how those effects were documented, what information accompanied a submission and how the project team responded.

Pricing information may include quantities, rates, resource assumptions and relevant contract provisions. The available detail affects what can be evaluated and the limitations of the analysis.