Dealing With Project Changes (CE) (PjM) (PDD)

Even the best prepared construction documents may not be followed exactly, while contractors are executing the work of a project. Almost no projects are built exactly as designed. There are too many people involved, too much time elapses in the course of a project, in which people have time to consider past decisions, and there are too many actually good reasons to make changes to the work.

When inevitable changes happen in the construction of the project, the terms of the contract for the work will also change. These will often be changes in the contract sum and the contract price. The better the systems in place to handle such changes and issues, the more smoothly the project will progress.

This course will examine the primary ways for architects to process construction changes.

Upon successful completion of this module, the student will be able to:

• Define what all is included, when the term “contract documents” is used.
• Describe the principal means and documents used to track and implement changes during construction projects.
• Recognize what an architect should and should not do on a job site.
• Discuss the numerous reasons changes occur during projects.
• Differentiate between an architect’s supplemental instructions, change orders, and construction change directives.
• Examine how system conflicts should be resolved during construction.

Paul Spite, BS, BA
AFD Consulting, Founder and Principal

Paul is a Registered Architect with over forty years of experience, a course developer and has been a teacher in multiple venues in the past. He is also a writer in many venues, having developed many studies, a few published articles, numerous short stories, multiple screenplays, two non-fiction manuals for church design and one novel. More to the focus of this endeavor, Paul has also created presentations for twenty-six lunch and learn presentations for building material manufacturers, webinars covering the subjects of Aging-in-Place and Architectural Acoustics and eleven distance learning courses for architects, engineers and contractors. As he nears retirement from managing his small architectural practice, Paul hopes to focus even more of his energy on teaching and on course development.