NEC isn't more admin. It's the right amount.

21 Jan 2026 · 1 min

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1:04

In this concise YouTube monologue, William Doyle MRICS argues that the additional administrative tasks required by NEC contracts are not excessive but represent good project‑management practice. He explains that the ongoing record‑keeping and periodic re‑estimating inherent in NEC keep information fresh, reduce uncertainty, and prevent the last‑minute panic of discovering large delay or disruption claims. By contrast, traditional contracts often allow facts and knowledge to fade as teams move on, leading to prolonged disputes. Doyle concludes that the modest extra admin of NEC ultimately yields better project outcomes through proactive, contemporaneous management.

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So NEC contracts, yeah, there's a little bit more admin to do as you go. Is it more though? It's probably the right amount, isn't it? It's good practice project management. The payoff is that at the end of the project, you shouldn't have so much uncertainty and, you know, there shouldn't be that last-minute panic and realisation, oh no, we're going long. We've got a big delay and disruption claim to wrap up. And when you think about traditional forms of contract, that can quite often go on for years and Meanwhile, the, the people who have built the project have gone on to other projects. So, you know, we— facts start to fade, knowledge starts to fade. Um, whereas NEC favors that contemporaneous approach prospectively, using, um, the, the, the people and the information as it's still fresh. And I think whilst that means a little bit of estimating— we estimated the whole project at the beginning We just— we're now needing to estimate little bits as we go. I think that's a more satisfactory approach, is going to get us a better project outcome.