Project Management

Fast-Tracking

Fast-tracking is a technique in which phases or activities that normally would be done sequentially are performed in parallel. Fast-tracking does not result in increased cost but it does increase the risk, as activities that were originally intended to be performed sequentially are now performed in parallel.

The ability to fast-track implies that the finish-to-start relationship between the activities was discretionary.

Crashing

Crashing is used if fast-tracking did not save enough time on the schedule. Crashing is a technique in which cost and schedule trade-offs are analyzed to determine how to obtain the greatest amount of compression for the least incremental cost.

Crashing analyzes critical activities based on the lowest crash cost per time unit allowing the team to identify those candidate activities that would produce the greatest value at the least incremental cost.

The results of a crashing analysis can be plotted in a crash graph, where activities with the flattest slope would be considered first, meaning that they gain the most time savings but have a smaller increase in cost (rise).