Crashing and Fast Tracking are handy tools a project manager can turn to when schedule manipulation is required.

To be more specific: Crashing and Fast Tracking are Schedule Compression techniques.

In this article, we’ll take a look at:

• The definitions and use cases of crashing and fast tracking
• How to remember the difference between crashing and fast tracking
• When and how you might use these techniques on your projects

Crashing in Project Management

Crashing is the first schedule compression technique you might consider if you need to manipulate the schedule on a project.

So if your project is behind schedule and you need to catch up, or if some external force is requiring you to reexamine your schedule for some reason, but compromising on scope or quality is not an option, then crashing is a useful option to consider.

Crashing involves adding resources to your project in order to keep your scope and deadline intact.

Translation: crashing almost always means you’re adding cost to the project.

So, in short, if you have schedule issues but you still need to deliver the project requirements as they were laid out, and extending the timeline is not an option, then you’re going to have to look at pulling the “cost” lever and adding resources in order to get things done on time and with the expected quality.

That’s crashing in project management.

Fast Tracking in Project Management

What if you have timeline issues on your project but extending the deadline and adding expense is simply not an option?

You might have to entertain compromising on quality to some degree.

It’s not something any project manager particularly likes doing, but it does happen, and if your project is behind schedule — or your deadline has been moved up — and you can’t get any more money to add resources, you might want to consider fast tracking.

Fast Tracking involves performing certain activities at the same time that were originally planned to be executed in sequence.

So, you might have needed certain members of the project team to resolve Task A and then move to Task B once they were done.

Instead, if you turn to fast tracking to get things done quicker and meet your deadlines, you might have part of the team finishing Task A while another part finishes Task B.

This can, of course, cause problems in the form of defects and change requests, because if this was an ideal workload reality to begin with, you would have already planned it that way.

In addition to potentially sacrificing quality, Fast Tracking can wind up adding expense to your projects if you’re not careful, as it will most likely introduce risk.

Difference Between Crashing and Fast Tracking

Here are a couple of conceptual methods to help you keep Crashing and Fast Tracking separated — and if you’re studying for the PMP Exam, make sure you know the difference between the two!

How to Remember the Definition of Crashing

Think of the concept of “crashing a party” … people who weren’t invited to the party show up, and now you have additional people at your party.

Crashing in project management involves adding people — or other resources — who weren’t originally part of the project phase you’re trying to speed up.

So you need to bring in some party crashers to get things done quicker.

And just like adding more people to your party can mean adding cost — in the form of more food and drinks — adding people or resources to your project means adding cost.

In summary: Crashing equals adding resources to get things done and, presumably, adding expense.

How to Remember the Definition of Fast Tracking

Fast Tracking, on the other hand, just means your project team is going to attempt to perform tasks faster than you originally planned.

There are no party crashers to help get things done quicker, because you can’t afford to have them show up and incur additional cost.

So you’re going to have your existing project team divvy up work a little more than you’d intended, overlap tasks that had been intended to be performed sequentially, and ask everyone to step on the gas and go faster.

Going faster than the speed limit can be risky. Things can go terribly wrong.

In summary: Fast Tracking involves rushing through estimated timelines in order to get things done quicker, introducing risk and potentially sacrificing quality.