Fast Tracking vs. Crashing a Schedule

Two ways to recover time

A design package is due in eight working days. The current plan needs six days to develop the layout and four more to prepare the quantity estimate. The estimate follows the layout, so the sequence takes ten days. The team needs to recover two.

Fast tracking overlaps work that was planned in sequence. Crashing adds resources or uses a more costly delivery option to shorten the work. Both aim to compress the schedule while retaining the agreed scope. Removing a deliverable is a separate scope decision.

PMI describes these approaches in its overview of time-saving techniques. The practical question is which change the work can support, and what it will cost in money, coordination, or rework.

Fast tracking: decide what is stable enough

The estimator could begin quantities for a settled part of the layout while the designer finishes another area. Starting on day five creates two days of overlap. It also means some information is still changing.

Agree which areas are ready to use, how revisions will be identified, and who will tell the estimator when an assumption changes. If the unresolved access location could reshape the whole layout, there may be very little useful work to start early.

Fast tracking does not require a new hire to create cost. Repeated quantities, extra coordination, and rushed handoffs can consume the time and fee the overlap was meant to save.

Crashing: check that added capacity can help

A second estimator might take a separate portion of the package. To support a two-day estimate, the team would need enough divisible work, available staff, and time to combine and check the results. The example’s two-day duration is an assumption to test with the estimators, not a promise that two people work twice as fast.

Compare the added cost with the time actually recovered. Include onboarding, overtime premiums where applicable, and review effort. Adding someone to a task that is waiting for a decision will not resolve the missing decision. The staffing and coordination problem matters as much as the headcount.

Check the rest of the schedule

If an independent approval cannot arrive before day ten, compressing this sequence to eight days may not advance delivery. Review the critical path and any parallel paths before spending money to recover time.

After each change, recalculate. Another path may become critical, or a shared reviewer may be booked on the new finish date. Keep required checks visible rather than quietly using their time as the recovery allowance.

Make a recovery choice you can revisit

Write down the proposed change, expected days recovered, added cost, assumptions, and the condition that would make you reconsider. For the overlap option: “Start quantities on the settled western area on day five. Designer flags revisions daily. Reassess the delivery forecast if the access decision changes that area.”

The two methods can be combined, but each change needs a reason. Start with the constraint holding up delivery, compare credible options with the team, and use the resulting forecast in the recovery conversation.