Advanced Contract Negotiation and Claims Management Training Course

Course overview

Complex projects rarely fail because a contract is missing; they fail when commercial teams cannot convert contract wording into timely notices, defensible records, negotiated settlements, and controlled change. Senior contract and project professionals must protect entitlement without damaging critical supplier, client, or delivery relationships. This course addresses the high-stakes decisions that arise when scope changes, access is delayed, instructions are disputed, payment is withheld, or multiple parties contribute to a delay or cost overrun.

Participants examine advanced negotiation and claims-management practices across the contract lifecycle, from preparing a negotiation mandate and analysing contractual risk allocation to establishing entitlement, quantifying time and money, and resolving disputes before escalation. They apply issue trees, BATNA and concession planning, notice registers, cause-and-effect analysis, critical-path delay analysis, disruption assessment, and evidence matrices. The course uses NEC4 ECC and FIDIC Red Book 2017 clauses as reference points while building methods that transfer to bespoke EPC, construction, engineering, supply, and services contracts.

Teaching is instructor-led and highly applied. Delegates work through a multi-party project case involving delayed access, design change, acceleration, disputed payment, and competing claims. They draft a negotiation strategy, prepare contractual notices, assess a claim file, test a quantum calculation, and conduct a structured settlement meeting. Each participant leaves with an editable Contract Negotiation and Claims Management Playbook containing a claim-review checklist, evidence matrix, negotiation-planning template, concession log, and 90-day workplace implementation plan.

The programme is designed for professionals who already work with live contracts and need greater control over contentious change, commercial negotiation, and claim avoidance. It is particularly valuable where contract decisions must withstand executive review, audit scrutiny, client challenge, or formal dispute-resolution procedures.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Construct a negotiation mandate using stakeholder interests, BATNA, reservation positions, and concession boundaries
• Interpret NEC4 ECC and FIDIC Red Book 2017 mechanisms for notices, compensation events, variations, and claims
• Build a claim entitlement matrix linking contractual clauses, factual events, notices, and supporting evidence
• Draft timely contractual notices that preserve rights while maintaining a commercially workable relationship
• Analyse delay and disruption using critical-path logic, contemporaneous records, and cause-and-effect mapping
• Calculate claim quantum using cost build-ups, productivity impacts, prolongation categories, and mitigation records
• Conduct a structured settlement negotiation using issue trees, package trades, and documented settlement terms
• Produce a claims-management playbook with registers, review gates, escalation routes, and action priorities

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• Contracts Managers — who lead contractual correspondence, change control, and claim-resolution strategies
• Commercial Managers — who must protect margin and negotiate settlements on complex delivery contracts
• Project Managers — who need to turn project events into timely notices, records, and defensible decisions
• Procurement Managers — who negotiate supplier terms and manage post-award commercial risk
• Quantity Surveyors and Cost Engineers — who prepare valuations, quantum assessments, and substantiation records
• Project Controls Managers — who provide schedule, cost, and progress evidence for delay and disruption claims

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have practical experience administering, delivering, procuring, or supporting projects under commercial contracts. They should already understand core terms such as scope, variation, notice, payment, liability, programme, extension of time, and dispute escalation, and be able to read a contract clause and project correspondence. Familiarity with a standard form such as NEC, FIDIC, JCT, or a bespoke EPC or services agreement is helpful. Participants should be comfortable using Microsoft Excel for basic calculations and registers. Legal qualification, formal claims certification, Primavera P6 expertise, or previous dispute-resolution experience is not required.

Training methodology

The five-day programme combines instructor-led clause interpretation with facilitated commercial decision-making. Participants work in teams on an evolving project case, reviewing correspondence, programmes, meeting minutes, cost records, and contract extracts to determine entitlement and risk. Short technical demonstrations show how to structure notice registers, evidence matrices, delay logic, and quantum worksheets in Aconex and Microsoft Excel. Role-play negotiations test preparation against live pressure, competing interests, and authority limits. Each day ends with a practical output, culminating in an individual application plan for a current or forthcoming contract.

Course outline

Day 1: Contract strategy, risk allocation and negotiation preparation

• Contract lifecycle risk map for pre-award, delivery, change, and close-out
• Risk allocation analysis across scope, time, payment, liability, and force majeure
• NEC4 ECC compensation-event workflow and early-warning obligations
• FIDIC Red Book 2017 claims, notices, determinations, and dispute-avoidance provisions
• Negotiation mandate design using BATNA, reservation value, and authority limits
• Stakeholder interest mapping and internal alignment before commercial meetings
• Concession planning through package trades, conditional offers, and walk-away triggers

Workshop: Participants prepare a negotiation mandate and concession plan for a disputed pre-construction scope allocation meeting.

Day 2: Notices, records and entitlement establishment

• Notice validity tests for timing, content, service method, and contractual addressee
• Rights-preserving correspondence that separates fact, position, and reservation
• Claim entitlement matrix linking events, clauses, notices, and remedies
• Contemporaneous evidence hierarchy for correspondence, diaries, programmes, and progress records
• Aconex document-control workflows for transmittals, revisions, and audit trails
• Causation analysis using event chronologies and cause-and-effect diagrams
• Mitigation obligations, concurrent responsibility, and preventable loss

Workshop: Participants review a defective project file and produce a notice register, evidence matrix, and corrected contractual notice.

Day 3: Delay, disruption and quantum assessment

• Critical-path concepts for contractual delay analysis
• Time-impact analysis and window analysis selection criteria
• Concurrent delay assessment and allocation of delay responsibility
• Disruption analysis using productivity measures, measured mile, and contemporaneous data
• Prolongation cost categories including site overheads, preliminaries, and financing impacts
• Microsoft Excel claim-quantum build-ups with assumptions, source records, and sensitivity checks
• Avoiding double recovery across variation, prolongation, disruption, and acceleration claims

Workshop: Participants assess a delayed-access scenario and prepare a time-and-cost claim summary with a defensible calculation basis.

Day 4: Advanced negotiation and settlement of claims

• Issue-tree construction for separating entitlement, causation, quantum, and relationship issues
• Interest-based negotiation for multi-party project disputes
• Anchoring, framing, objective criteria, and calibrated questioning techniques
• Settlement-zone analysis using best-case, likely-case, and worst-case exposure
• Package-deal design across time, money, scope, release, and future performance
• Without-prejudice communications, negotiation records, and settlement authority controls
• Drafting settlement heads of terms, releases, reservations, and implementation actions

Workshop: Participants conduct a facilitated contractor-client settlement negotiation and produce agreed heads of terms or a documented impasse plan.

Day 5: Claims governance, dispute avoidance and workplace implementation

• Claims-management operating model with roles, decision rights, and escalation thresholds
• Claim review gates from event identification to submission, negotiation, and closure
• Dashboard design for notices, exposure, ageing, recovery probability, and action ownership
• Dispute-avoidance boards, adjudication, mediation, arbitration, and litigation decision criteria
• Expert evidence strategy for delay, quantum, technical, and forensic accounting issues
• Lessons-learned reviews that convert resolved claims into contract and project controls
• Ninety-day implementation planning for live-contract claims improvement

Workshop: Participants complete and peer-review a Contract Negotiation and Claims Management Playbook for application to a live or anticipated contract.

Tools & standards covered

NEC4 Engineering and Construction Contract, FIDIC Red Book 2017, Oracle Aconex, Microsoft Excel

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions