Q 230. Halfway through the project, the project manager realizes that the project will not be able to meet the project completion deadline. Fast tracking and Crashing are two project management techniques that the manager could deploy to ensure timely completion. Highlight the characteristics and usage of each technique by providing suitable examples 

 

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Fast tracking and Crashing techniques are used in the project management and both techniques have equal importance in the managing of project schedule as per applicability and situations.

Fast Tracking: -  

In this technique project manger perform the project activities parallel instead of series and try to achieve the project timeline. Some risks are involved in the fast-tracking technique because parallel activities might be increased the reworking some time and increase the time. Extra precautions are required when use this technique by the project manager.

It is very important to perform the critical path exercise before use this technique. We should use this technique for all activities which are on critical path.

Example – A project of installation the new production line. we can do some electrical & carpentry work parallel

Crashing: -

Crashing is also a technique which use for meeting the deadline of project. This technique is based on increase the resources to complete the work earlier or on time. Project cost increases in this technique due to more resources. we should evaluate the end to end project cost before use this technique. All activities which are shortlisted for doing earlier by extra resources must be on critical path. So detailed analysis of project critical path is required before implementation. Some time project manager needs to take an approval of senior authorities. We also need to evaluate the project cost with extra cost Vs project benefits.

Example: - we are installing a producing line and 20 workers can complete the work in 30 days, if we want complete this work in 15 work then we have to increase the worker for same work.

We should use Fast Tracking technique first to meet the deadline of project, crashing technique is less preferable until it is a very high profitable project or other significant impact more than cost on business like – Regulatory, brand image, company reputation etc.

Conclusion

Fast Tracking	Crashing
Always try first	Try when Fast tracking is not able to give results
Perform parallel activities to meet the project time line	More resources use to complete the activities at time
Risk of reworking involve	Increases cost due to extra resources
Use when parallel activities give the benefit in respect of reduce the time	Use when extra resources give the benefit in respect of reduce the time
Always apply on critical path activities	Always apply on critical path activities

 

 

Answer:

If you adjust your project schedule so that two or more tasks that were to take place sequentially will now take place in parallel, thereby reducing the timeline, this is called "Fast Tracking".

Fast tracking is the schedule compression technique in which phases or activities normally performed in sequence are performed in parallel. Production plants have this technique followed in case the process is steamlined/sequential like assembly line. Even service organisation have been following this technique in many ways.

 

Example: 
Steps 3 to 11 can be go in parallel
Also, one may have 3 cutting machines, 12 sewing machines, 7 labor in each stage of stitching the shirt, 6 inspector....

 

The Case of Shirt Manufacturing:
Step1 - Cut
Step 2 - Attach S
Step 3 - Sew
Step 4 - Hem
Step 5 - Attach Co
Step 6 - Collar
Step 7 - Sleeve
Step 8 - Front
Step 9 - Back
Step 10 - Shoulder
Step 11 - Cuff
Step 12 - Iron
Step 13 - Inspect
Step 14 - Fold & Pack

 

Crashing is a schedule compression technique that is used to reduce/shorten the duration of a project without amending the defined Scope. It largely depends on the Project Sponsor's agreement. Agile ways make the Project Manager be more flexible and deliver ahead of schedule date or fixed the delivery date when the project was delayed and not meeting the schedules but you made sure it is delivered as scheduled to make up the lost time. It can be stressful for resources. Adding resources or expert/experienced users makes a big difference to outcome.

 

Both the techniques, fast tracking and crashing, considering the cost and schedule trade-offs, are utilised in order to determine or compare best output/results.

Fast-tracking and crashing are  important techniques of project management to shorten/compress the project schedule. These techniques, though not commonly used ones, but have important applications in project management. 

 

-There may be various business reasons to do them,  when the project is already running late due to various unexpected conditions like  crunch of manpower and other  resources . They may be also mooted in  the event of  internal and external pressure from various stakeholders of the organization to expedite the project and finish before deadline.

 

FAST TRACKING

-Fast tracking is a technique that is usually the first line of action, when project compression is warranted. It encompasses doing of multiple activities in parallel, even though there may be some degree of  finish to start dependencies of both the activities. 

 

-One of the best examples is -starting to work on product development, when product design is not complete, but a part of product design is accomplished. Whereas earlier plan was to initiate product development at the end of complete product design.

Other relevant examples are:

-Start laying foundation of construction, even if architectural drawings/designs are not completely done.

-  Constructing a different portion of highway simultaneously with another initiated portion

- We  need to analyze the dependencies of activities, if they are really mandatory or   just  presumed.  If it is only discretionary, then we can manipulate the schedule of activities, so that overall time gets shortened. For  an example – Activity 1 and Activity 2 have essential  finish-to-start dependencies, with length of each activity being 5 days and the total duration  being ten days. Let us assume that project manager gets a deadline from project sponsor to finish the project in 8 days. If we start  the second activity by the end of 3rd day or beginning of 4 th day, we will be able to cut short  2 days and finish both the activities in 8 days 

 

 

 

The biggest drawbacks of fast tracking are:

-       Cannot be done, when there is complete interdependency or finish to start relationships of processes .

-       Leads to rework, project extension and project failure many a times.

 

-A  general rule that applies in fast tracking is that ,the second activity can be started when the first activity is at least 2/3^rd or around 66% complete. This usually fits well and is commonly practiced.

 

CRASHING

Crashing is a technique, which entails use of additional resources, e.g.- overtime, manpower, additional material and equipment. The motto is to finish the activities or reach the project  deadline at earliest, well ahead of the anticipated or projected deadline.

 

-Crashing works very well  in certain scenarios like construction industry- more workers finish the task earlier compared to a smaller number of workers.  The best example of crashing was seen in Year 2000-Y2K- projects, when many of the companies accelerated the project to meet the deadline of completion of projects by the end of 1999.

 

-The biggest issue with crashing is that, it increases financial burden. So the cost vs time tradeoffs have to be carefully decided, when deciding for crashing.

 

- Also crashing is usually never the first choice, it is usually carried out, when fast tracking does not yield the desired result.  

 

-Crashing also can lead to waste of resources,  especially with more of manpower leading to more confusion and errors. For example in complex neurosurgeries, which goes on for many hours and If we try to add more surgeons in team to shorten surgery time, it may rather lead to more complications due to difference in opinion, difference in skills of surgeons and lack of coordination.

 

-Both Fast track and crashing needs to be implemented only in critical path  activities. If we employ them on non-critical path activities, there will be no shortening of duration.

Examples for Fast tracking and crashing

Civil engineering

1)      Fast tracking = Start working on Wooden Interiors, still Flooring is in Place (Interior redesign to use standard Factory made instead of custom built in Location)

2)      Crashing = Increase number of Excavation Drills to dig the Ground for Foundations. Increasing Size of Material dumper and Tonnage capacity of vehicle for moving materials.

Software Industry

1)      Fast tracking = adding Developers to team early during feasibility design phase itself, (Advanced Scrum)

2)      Crashing = Increasing developers and outsourcing module development

Mechanical (Automotive and Aerospace)

1)      Fast tracking = Foam board wiring and Kitting for Aerospace Electrical harness and automotive harness (Plug and Play)

2)      Fast tracking = Parallel assembly line for Modular Control units / Moving factory line

3)      Crashing = Increased Robo lines with # of robo used for welding BIW in auto
Dual nozzle /Multi Nozzle spray for painting

Service Food Processing

1)      Fast tracking = preparing serving plates even when the main food is in process

2)      Crashing = Using Hot plates

 

 

Several techniques are used in Project management in Schedule management plan for schedule compression like----

1.    Fast tracking

2.    Crashing

3.    Both

4.    Reduce scope

5.    Cut quality

6.    Resource allocation

 

Out of these techniques resource allocation is the best technique because it does not increase either cost or the risk.

 

Let us see the two above mentioned techniques----

Fast tracking--- during project follow up, there might be several change requests from the stakeholders, analysing their requests based on the importance and influence of the stakeholders, the project team also finds alternate methods, if the change request is accepted then it has to go through integrated change control process. If the customer demands that the project should be completed or the deliverable should be given ahead of the scheduled date due to certain emergency, than the project manager has to take several measures to fulfil the customer demand but while meeting such a demand the probability of occurrence of the risk becomes high because you want to finish it earlier than scheduled so you will have to perform many linear activities in parallel. The most important thing is that the project manager has to keep an eye on time management and perform risk assessment. This might involve compromising on quality and/or scope reduction which has to be verified by the key stakeholders and the project sponsor.

 

Crashing—while performing customer demand of finishing the project work or delivering the deliverable the project manager could visualize the critical path of the project or project network diagram and allocate resources to it to finish the work on critical path. Adding resources on the critical path increases the cost of the project and time management (increase supervision). Activities on the critical path are very important to the success of the project as a whole. Also, we cannot delay any activities on the critical path because there is no float on them. We can delay activities on the non-critical path or add buffer either after the non-critical activity or at the end of the project but this will change the critical path and our project will bear high risk.

 

At some instances both fast tracking and crashing are applied simultaneously.

The two tyes of techniques used in schedule compressio are 

1. Fast tracking

2. Crashing

Both of these techniques has their own pro's and Con which is detailes below.

 

S.No Fast Tracking Crashing 1 Activity or set of activities are performed in parallel which was originally scheduled as sequential Additional resources deployed than planned 2 Increase in risk due to rework and corrections Increases cost due to additional resources 3 Works only when the activities are independent of each other can be used only if adding resources reduces the time 4 Applied before using a crashing technique Some examples are: Overtime, Adding resources, Incentives 5 No change in cost but increased risk Best used when there are activities which require low-cost resources 6 Applied to critical path activities to reduce timelines Applied to critical path activities to reduce timelines

Benchmark Six Sigma Expert View by Venugopal R

Fast tracking and Crashing are ‘compression’ techniques used to shorten the time required to complete a project.

 

Fast tracking is a method where activities that were planned to be performed sequentially are taken up in parallel, where possible. Crashing is method where additional resources are employed to speed up the activities and thus shorten the time required to complete the project.

 

Let’s illustrate it using a simplified example. Image a project to set up a transaction process as per client requirements. The processes involved are Software development, Hardware procurement, Training plans, Space planning, Resource Hiring, Training.

 

The below illustrations show the original schedule, Fast tracked schedule and Crashed schedule.

 

For the Fast tracked schedule, the Hardware development and a portion of training plan have been taken in parallel with the Software development. Similarly, a part of the resource hiring process has been taken in parallel with the training plan and space planning. The time duration is reduced from 100 days to 65 days.

 

For the Crashed schedule, additional resources have been added for Software development, Resource hiring and Training processes, thereby reducing the time duration for these processes, resulting in the overall schedule to reduce from 100 to 70 days.

 

While both the above approaches save time there are certain assumptions, risks and challenges for both the approaches.

 

For Fast tracking:

1. The project manager is assuming that either the there is no dependency for the processes being changed from serial to parallel, or a discretionary dependency is assumed. There is a risk of doing rework and hence consuming more time if the dependency assumptions were not correct.
2. The process(es) selected for parallel operation need to be from the critical path only. Otherwise, it will not result in saving the overall time.
3. It is assumed that there will be no additional resource requirement while changing to parallel execution
4. There will be need to provide effective communication to the team and associated stakeholders.

For Crashing:

1. Adding more resources will be costlier
2. It may not be easy to on-board more resources at short notice.
3. The skills of the newly inducted resources may not be adequate and could result in Quality issues
4. Not all processes can be made faster by mere addition of resources. For eg. training process duration will depend on the learning ability of the trainee.

Fast tracking and Crashing are compression methods, that are applied by the project manager to save the situation by altering an originally planned schedule. Hence there are risks, challenges and cost involved while applying these methods. They are likely to face resistance from other stakeholders and need to be prepared to own up responsibility in case of failures.

 

It is very important that they effectively involve all stakeholders and apply necessary precautions, monitoring and mitigation plans if the situation requires them to adopt these methods.

Definition based on PMBOK guide sixth edition of Fast tracking is :

A scheduled compression technique-in which activities and phases normally done in sequence are performed in parallel. for atleast a portion of their duration.

 

Definition based on PMBOK guide sixth edition of Crashing is :

This is a technique used to shorten the schedule duration for the least incremental cost by adding resources.

 

Example of Fast Tracking:-

Changing the relationship between Paint room and Install carpets by adding lead time to install carpets in the Project schedule network diagram:-

Before the change rooms should be painted before carpets are installed

After the change with the added lead time the carpets can be installed just before the rooms are to be painted.

 

Though the above saves time but more so often would also lead to

-Rework,

-Increasing the project cost and risk. Also, it

-Overlaps the phases of the work,-phase 2 could start before phase one ends.

 

Thus to avoid the above issues:

-Interdependencies between phases should be managed properly to avoid rework and risk

-Use the already planned resources

-Judiciousness in utilizing resources in such a way so that they are not in aligned to successive phases which might lead to burnout

 

Crashing:-

Crashing might save and reduce project schedule duration, but it always results in increased costs due to increase in number of resources.It might include resources like weekend work, overtime to meet the project deliverables resulting in burnout thus increasing the risk leading to pulling resources from non critical path activities leading to these activities to go silently critical.

 

During crashing its important to constantly review CPI ( Cost performance index) and SPI (Schedule performance index) as crashing of projects lead to decreased duration but increase in cost.

 

 

Congratulations to Sudheer, Nikhil, Jayaram, Shaily, Shashank and Shashikant for providing good valid answers. The winner for today is  Shashikant Adlakha.