David McIntyre provides a personal view of ADR from an expert engineer
Disputes consume energy and resources that could otherwise be used to make positive contributions to businesses and society as a whole. Sadly, disagreements are an inevitable consequence of human interaction and irrespective of what we try to do to prevent them from occurring they still happen. Indeed we have created an industry to deal with them.
Quick & decisive
For all our sakes, we need to resolve disputes as efficiently as possible. I am not advocating a return to duelling or bare knuckle fights. However, these methods did have the advantage of being quick and decisive. Even though in the construction industry we usually do not now settle our differences by combat, there is still a tendency to declare war any time there is a disagreement.
Disputes arise out of time pressures, money, inappropriate allocation of risks, conflicts of interests etc. However, parties are often reluctant to contemplate that their project will get into difficulties; perhaps it is similar to contemplating death and then preparing for it by
