Does Fast Tracking increase project cost?

Published on: October 17, 2021
Last updated: October 18, 2022 Read in fullscreen view

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What is Fast Tracking?

Fast-tracking is a technique where activities that would have been performed sequentially using the original schedule are performed in parallel. In other words, fast tracking a project means the activities are worked on simultaneously instead of waiting for each piece to be completed separately. But fast tracking can only be applied if the activities in question can actually be overlapped.

What is the primary benefit to fast tracking?

One of the reasons that project managers will fast-track a project is that it increases productivity in the scheduling resource utilization of the project. Of course, fast-track projects will help you make up for lost time or complete the project sooner if that's necessary.

When to fast track your project?

Fast-tracking is one common approach to schedule compression; the crashing technique is the other. So, if fast-tracking a project isn’t feasible, a project team can choose to “crash” a schedule instead.

Project crashing is when you add additional resources to an activity, rather than moving up its start date.

Does Fast Tracking increase project cost?

When you need to compress a schedule, you should consider this technique first, because fast tracking usually does not involve any costs. This technique simply rearranges the activities in the original schedule.

Although fast tracking may not result in an increase in the cost, it leads to an increase in the risk, because activities now being performed in parallel may lead to needing to rework or rearrange the project. Reworking the project can also waste even more time.

As a project manager, you’ll have to weigh the pros and cons of fast tracking to understand whether it will be worthwhile to undertake increased risk.

Fast Tracking increase project risk, while Crashing increases cost

Project crashing can speed up project delivery times by compressing the schedule, but there are increased costs to consider. Allocating extra resources also means that you could be taking people away from other projects.