A blog that looks at all aspects of project and program finances from budgets, estimating and accounting to getting a pay rise and managing contracts.
Written by Elizabeth Harrin from GirlsGuideToPM.com.
Your sponsor has asked you to get the work done faster… who hasn’t been in that situation?! That’s one reason why you may want to crash your project schedule, but there are others. In the past, I’ve written about 7 reasons to crash the schedule, and in this video, I pick out my top 5 to discuss in more detail. I talk about schedule compression (obviously), when part of the project has the potential to put the overall project at risk, when you’ve got a fixed deadline, when the team is needed for other work and when there’s a general delay which affects your ability to hit your expected deadlines. Crashing can help in all of those situations, used sensibly. Engage professional judgement before you go for it!
What are your thoughts on crashing? Personally, I try not to do it too often because it’s a lot of effort and it doesn’t always give you the results you were expecting, but it is a useful skill in the toolbox for predictive project managers, so it’s worth knowing when you would consider to use the technique.
Great blog on Project crashing! It happens more often than we think. As a PM a very good idea to just discuss with the team (especially sponsors and main stakeholders) in advance. This way it is not a surprise and they are prepared if it comes to it. Early communication is the key. Thanks Elizabeth. I am very glad I came across your blog.
Thank you for sharing. This is a good post on project crashing. I will be sharing this with my students too as they often struggle to understand the concept.
