Skip to content
Kairos OneBook a demo
Menu
Intermediate · 2 min read

Schedule compression: crashing and fast-tracking

The two levers for recovering time — paying for speed, or accepting overlap risk — and what each does to a schedule.

Working definition

Schedule compression deliberately shortens remaining duration. Two common techniques are crashing—adding or changing resources, shifts, methods, or logistics—and fast-tracking—overlapping work that had been sequential. A recovery plan may also resequence work, remove constraints, resolve interfaces, or change scope under proper authority. Review each source of recovered time, its feasibility, cost, risk, and approval basis.

Key takeaways

  • Crashing concentrates resources on critical activities to shorten them.
  • Fast-tracking overlaps work that had been planned sequentially—for example, beginning selected construction before all design is complete.
  • Ask three questions.
01

Crashing: time for money

Crashing concentrates resources on critical activities to shorten them. Its arithmetic is unforgiving in two ways. It only works on the critical path — accelerating floated work is pure spend. And it meets diminishing returns fast: crews stack, productivity drops, and each recovered day costs more than the last. A credible crashing plan names the activities, the added resources, and the new durations — and shows the next-longest path, because compressing one path far enough simply promotes another to critical.

02

Fast-tracking: time for risk

Fast-tracking overlaps work that had been planned sequentially—for example, beginning selected construction before all design is complete. It can create added coordination, supervision, rework, quality, safety, and commercial risk, and it may also require premium cost. In the schedule it often appears as changed relationships, added release milestones, or phased work packages, all of which should be tied to an executable field and design-control plan.

03

Evaluating a recovery schedule

Ask three questions. Where do the recovered days actually come from — named crashing, named overlaps, or (the wrong answer) durations trimmed and logic loosened with no stated means? Is the residual float distribution plausible, or has the plan spent every buffer to print the target date? And is the productivity assumption defensible, given that compressed work reliably yields less per crew-hour, not more? A recovery plan that recovers on paper by deleting the schedule’s honesty has made the next dispute, not the date.

Sources and scope

Follow the reference trail.

This guide is original educational commentary. Kairos reference records identify the source organizations, editions and scope behind this guidance. The original publishers retain their publications and rights.

Schedule Assessment Guide: Best Practices for Project SchedulesU.S. Government Accountability Office · checked 2026-08-01Recommended PracticesAACE International · checked 2026-08-01