The development of a baseline program involves the expertise of
many, most of whom are staff of construction firms. The planning
engineer/planning manager appears to make the highest input,
while the client and/or his or her agent make the lowest input. Due
to the little involvement of the latter, issues of baseline program
reliability are unlikely to be picked up during the early stages of
the project. This would not facilitate program approval or acceptance
process that would have to be undertaken later on by the employer
or its representatives. Depending on program specifications,
as stipulated in the contract, delays in program approval could result
in the lack of an agreed workable program until some period
after construction has commenced. As a result, contractors might
find it difficult to substantiate any delay claims resulting from risk
events occurring within this period. Therefore, active involvement
of clients would help with quick generation of acceptable baseline
programs, and hence facilitate prospective resolution of delay
claims (i.e., close in time to when the delay risk event occurred),
rather than on a retrospective basis or long after the event, which
has often been a recipe for disputes.