The American Society of Civil Engineers has published "Schedule Delay Analysis: Standard ANSI/ASCE/CI 67-17," which aims to help construction teams use the critical path method to determine the impact of construction delays on a project and calculate delay damages or liquidated damages.

The 33-page standard contains 35 guidelines—advice to teams and definitions of terms—under eight general categories, including critical path, float, early completion, chronology of the delay, concurrent delay, responsibility for the delay, changing schedules after the fact and acceleration.

One tip states, "For a delay to be compensable, it should be the sole cause of delay."

One definition concerns concurrent delay, which "can be described as a situation where two or more critical delays are occurring at the same time during all or a portion of the delay time frame in which the delays are occurring."

The standard, which costs $70, allows for "segmentation of responsibility" for delays to intermediate milestones and completion dates, says ASCE. It also "reflects the best engineering principles associated with schedule delay analysis, as well as the standard of practice in the U.S. construction industry," says the group.