It is suggested that many claims start with identification of loss, either in terms of schedule delay or costs, or most likely both, from which the 'who done it' investigation starts from a named suspect (typically the employer!). Unfortunately this approach tends to limit the field of vision and blinker the examination on those matters that are beneficial to the assumed result. As Arthur Conan Doyle famously stated "once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth. " A successful claim must therefore expand its field of vision to an exhaustive exploration of all the facts, from which beneficial evidence (to the claim) should be assessed within its true context. This also has the benefit of exposing matters that may be unhelpful to a claim, and hence the risks of each may be considered, and hopefully neutralised, but at the very least expressed in terms of counter-opinion and strength of argument. In other words, the claim position is tested and subject to criticism.
What would your best advice be? What worked for you? What didn't?
An associated paper has been added to the Forge Project Forensics library.
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