Easier Project Crashing Using the Critical Path Method

Project crashing can be easier than you think. Learn from experts when, why, and how to crash projects with CPM. Plus, download an easy-to-use calculator for Excel to help you rebalance tasks and add resources on tight deadlines.

What Is Project Crashing in Project Management?

Project crashing, also known as schedule compression and project time compression, is a management method used to shorten the length of projects. When crashing a project, managers accelerate or overlap processes, expand budgets, and add new resources.

Jon M. Quigley, Principal of ValueTransformation LLC and author of 10 books on advanced project management, is an experienced project crasher. “Project crashing can refer to spending more money to get things done faster,” he says. “The best project crashing method is to pinpoint and document the critical path. Other important aspects of project crashing are detailed project scheduling and additional resource allocation to shorten essential tasks.”

In project management, project crashing is essential to meeting tight deadlines. However, there are alternatives to project crashing, which might be less expensive.

Here are some project management alternatives to project crashing:

• Use Overtime: Schedule current team members to work additional hours. The overtime period should be limited and reasonable. It’s a good idea to get feedback from the team and stakeholders about adding more time to workweeks before committing staff.
• Improve Efficiency: Take the time to review all your current processes and see where you can streamline activities, resequence, or add new software tools.
• Be Okay with Being Late: At times, delivering faster may not be crucial. Review the additional costs and other downsides of crashing with stakeholders. You might conclude that later delivery is acceptable when weighed against the extra expense and risks of crashing.
• Use Fast-Tracking:

What Are the Common Reasons and Times You Should Crash a Project?

There are many reasons to crash a project. Project crashes often stem from customer demand or competitive market forces. Other reasons to project crash include making up time for unforeseen delays and early completion bonuses.

“Sometimes crashing in project management is the best, or only, solution to meet an immovable deadline,” notes Quigley. “This is particularly true when the project has many moving parts and large numbers of personnel.”

These are some common reasons to crash a project:

• Dependencies: When a particular workstream isn’t going well, it might become a new element in your critical path. One way to get the project back on track is to crash the schedule around tasks that have decelerated because of supply chain problems, personnel changes, or other unforeseen problems.
• Immovable Deadlines: In some situations, the deadline simply can’t change. Prompt delivery of a project might be non-negotiable when there are competitors, orders from upper management, or customer demands. A project deadline will also be immovable when there is a larger dependent project upstream.
• Customer or Contract Commitments: Many contracts specify delivery dates, and the inability to meet deadlines can result in costly penalties or lost relationships. Losing customer trust will always damage your business.
• Delays: Any project delays can impact final delivery dates. Delays may happen because subcontractors can’t deliver on time, team members are involved in other important projects, or a natural disaster disrupts processes. Project crashing is a way to recover some of this lost time.
• New Resources: New resources or products mean ramp-up time. Project crashing can make up for time lost in the training process.
• Market Forces: Intense global competition and rapid technology advances create pressure to develop and deliver projects faster.
• Incentives: Bonuses for early completion can make compressing project times more appealing.
• Overhead: With tight margins and aggressive deadlines, there’s no room for inefficiencies, redundancies, and waste. Speeding up timelines can help you identify and eliminate inefficiencies that consume significant chunks of your profit margins.
• Goodwill: Early delivery can build goodwill. Although project crashing has associated costs, improving brand reputation and customer loyalty can generate profits over time, as long as you monitor risks and quality.
• Pressure to Move Resources: Your project might not be the most important thing to your company at a given time. The team, or some members of it, might need to prioritize more important endeavors. Project crashing frees up resources for other projects.

Seven Rules for Project Crashing

There are seven rules for project crashing. These rules begin with having clarity around the ROI of crashing and a clear critical path. Other rules center on the project stage, resource quality, and the ease of integrating resources.

Project crashing rules provide guardrails to ensure your decision to crash makes sense for your team and your company. Dr. Mike Clayton, Founder of OnlinePMCourses and author of 14 project management books, says project crashing is, or should be, the final option. “Crashing is not a substitute for good planning. Always ensure you plan your delivery and communicate time scales with stakeholders well in advance. That way, you can save crashing as a very last resort.”

Consider these seven rules when deciding whether or not to project crash:

1. Project Necessity: Before you leap, can the ROI justify the increased costs, risks, and stress that project crashing can entail? Review the project management crashing plan with key stakeholders, and determine whether or not a crash is avoidable.
2. Critical Path Mapping: Tasks on the critical path affect the project’s delivery date. Crash only the tasks that are on the critical path or are likely to become critical tasks. Crashing tasks outside of the critical path, and therefore do not influence the delivery date, is a waste of resources.
3. Time Frames: The time it takes to complete a task or task series is an important consideration in a crashing decision. Short tasks that don’t repeat usually don’t benefit from crashing. Long tasks or task series are easier to compress with added resources, and they shorten the project timeline more substantially.
4. Appropriate Resources: Do you have qualified resources on your internal bench or a reliable supplier? If the onboarding time to transfer knowledge to new team members is substantial, then crashing may be unproductive.
5. Project Stage: Crashing might seem like a good option when the end of a project is looming and missing the deadline seems likely. However, this is the worst time to crash a project. Successful project crashing requires that managers secure new resources and train new team members, which takes time. Usually, crashing is only a viable decision during the early and middle stages of a project.
6. Modularity: When tasks are modular and don’t depend on one another for completion, crashing is a good option. Completing tasks in parallel makes it easier to add resources and speed up the schedule.
7. Integration: Sometimes, adding new team members creates more problems than it solves. Consider where the new resources would work in your environment and how they would integrate with the current team and management structure. Would adding more people throw off processes? You might be better off streamlining where you can and only adding resources when their integration causes less friction.

To Crash or Not to Crash? A Project Crashing Quiz

Take this decision-assisting quiz to help apply the seven rules of crashing to your own project. Review the crashing request and the project details. Next, answer each yes/no question and tally up your score.

What Are the Main Principles of Project Crashing?

Several principles apply in project crashing. Balancing the Iron Triangle, or the triple constraints of project management, is key to a successful project crash. The constraints are cost, time, and scope. Apply these principles to shorten time while maintaining quality.

“Project crashing involves compromise,” advises Clayton. “You will often have to make hard decisions about balancing time and cost with other principles, such as quality and scope.”

The Iron Triangle is a common project management graphic that depicts time, cost, and scope as the key considerations in a project. In the Iron Triangle, time is the schedule, cost is the budget, and scope is all deliverables.

Project managers use The Theory of Constraints (TOC) and the Iron Triangle principles to deliver quality crash projects. In a perfectly balanced or normal project, the triangle sum equals 180 degrees, with quality standards met at the project's end. The goal is to maintain a total of 180 degrees when changes occur. Project crashing always holds the risk that quality dives as speed increases because the scope must remain consistent as costs increase in order to shorten the length of the project. Achieve quality by carefully balancing the three constraints during project execution.

Using the Critical Path Method to Crash Projects

Project crashing can be complicated. Use the critical path method (CPM) to speed up your project schedule without affecting the scope. This will impact the budget. However, with project crashing, scheduling considerations are more important than costs.

Use the method provided here to help you figure out the critical path and potential variations of scheduling and budget changes. Once you have completed these steps, you can move forward with managing your project.

Steps of Project Crashing with CPM

Calculators make crashing projects with CPM easy. List the project activities, then determine their durations and predecessors.. Next, draw a network diagram, gather normal and crashing costs, and set the critical path. Finally, input your data into the calculator.

In this example, a manufacturer contracted to build a boiler system must crash a 125-day schedule to 75 days. The project manager knows she must engage additional resources to speed up the project. By following best practices and using a calculator, she can review cost and time trade-offs, select the optimal critical path, and reach the customer’s preferred deadline.

Here are the steps required to crash this project with CPM:

1. Assess the Critical Activities Network

In order to crash a project using CPM, you’ll need to map your critical path. The first step is to assess your critical activities network. Look at all the critical activities it will take to complete the project, then list each activity and their durations and predecessors.

In CPM, predecessors are tasks that have to be completed before work can begin on that task.

In this chart, you’ll find sample data for the example boiler system project crash.

2. Create a Table of Activities, Normal and Crash Durations, and Associated Costs

Once you have your critical activities, it’s time to compare their normal durations and associated costs to their crash durations and associated costs. Gather time frame and crash cost information from internal sources or vendors. In a new table, note tasks, predecessors, normal durations, crash durations, regular costs, and crash costs.

Refer to this chart to see sample data for the same example project:

Normal
Duration

Crash
Duration

Normal
Cost

Crash
Cost

3. Draw the Network Critical Path Diagram

1. Use the critical path method to identify the most extended sequence of critical activities to complete the project from start to finish.
2. Add up the total number of days in the critical path.
3. Add the total number of days in the critical path.

Tip: Newbies can learn more with a beginner’s guide to the critical path method.

Simple Network Diagram Critical Path Template for Excel

Download a Simple Network Diagram Critical Path Template for
Excel | Smartsheet

Create a project network diagram to determine the critical path for any project using this simple template. Note the tasks and the number of days it takes to reach the end of the project. The longest path is the critical path. The total time of all critical path tasks is the standard time it takes to complete the entire project. Once you’ve mapped the critical path, determine how and where to add resources to shorten the length of the project.

Easy Project Crashing with CPM Calculator

Download an Easy Project Crashing with CPM Calculator Template for
Excel | Smartsheet

This project crashing calculator uses the critical path method to simplify project crashing. With a click reveal time and cost trade-offs to achieve your desired budget and deadlines. You can expand this customizable tool to address large or small projects.

Tip: Add your Excel network diagram to the Excel calculator for a more streamlined transfer of information.

Project Management After Your Project Crashing Plan Is in Place

Once you decide on your new budget and the number of days to crash, you can set a schedule and assign tasks to people or vendors. Use Gantt or PERT methods to create schedules, monitor progress, and manage resources.

The easiest way to schedule a project crash; manage resources; and track time, additional compression, budget, and status is to use a crashing template.

Project Crashing Template

Download a Project Crashing Template for
Excel | Smartsheet

Use this project crashing template to track tasks, create a comprehensive Gantt chart, and oversee the budget for your project. The template allows you to assign tasks to various team members, mark priority tasks, and mark task status. Enter data into the Note tab to automatically populate the visually dynamic dashboard.

Project Crashing with CPM Tips

You can compress schedules without sacrificing quality. Know the best practices of crashing projects with CPM to ensure that you are successful. For example, set metrics, use other project management tools, make good trade-offs, and communicate clearly with team members.

Here are some expert tips:

• Set Metrics: Define metrics associated with task progress. Determine a way to gather the necessary data, and use that to measure your outcomes. Tracking metrics should also inform your next crash so you can learn from positive and negative results.
• Combine CPM with Other Tools at the Management Stage: “Your crash project plan often requires you to fold many different tools — critical path, PERT, and Gantt project management tools — together, particularly if you are working on a large, complex project,” notes Zucker, “It’s useful in crashing and makes it easier to adjust when things change — because they always do.”
• Be Flexible: Consider alternative approaches to the task or eliminate tasks that aren’t essential to the effort. For example, in communication with stakeholders, look at a scope rework. “The unexpected happens, and you have to adjust,” says Value Transform’s Quigley. “Larger projects, particularly if they cover longer time periods, hit a bump or two and you might have to create a new critical path and crash plan from time to time.”
• Ease Transitions: Spend time making sure task responsibilities are delineated. Everyone should have a clear understanding of where the transition points are and how to hand off tasks in a smooth and timely manner.
• Use Resource Leveling and Resource Smoothing: It is important that project managers become adept at managing resources. Two techniques to learn are resource leveling and resource smoothing. If two separate projects require the same resource at the same time, there might be a change in the critical path of one or both projects. Leveling resources prevents this from happening. When you smooth resources, you only delay tasks within their free or float time so that you do not change the critical path. Both techniques play an important role in planning and executing successful project crashes.
• Monitor Your Progress: Monitor activities and progress on the critical path often. If tasks fall behind, jump in quickly to find out why and make adjustments.
• Take Advantage of Free Calculators: Excel has built-in formulas that provide a fast and easy way to look at the time and cost trade-offs for your best project crashing options. In addition to this project crashing calculator, Microsoft offers a free add-in Excel Solver for quantitative analysis. Use this tool to help you simulate project crashing variables.
• Share Knowledge: Take the time to educate your client, sponsor, or stakeholders about the risks of project crashing. Make sure they understand the trade-offs and are willing to make them.
• Be Transparent: “The customer must be part of the decision to crash, no matter if the customer is external or internal. Start by sharing the critical path,” Quigley notes. “The easiest way to share information from beginning to end is to use project management software to maintain transparency and communication.”
• Proceed with Caution and Care for the Team: “While crashing can be exhilarating and recover a bad situation,” says Clayton, “it puts stress and strain on all concerned and can place relationships at serious risk. As soon as the dust clears, the project leader needs to immediately turn their attention to the welfare of participants and rebuilding relationships. If not, there might not be sufficient goodwill for the next project.”

Project Crashing Use Case Examples

There are examples of project crashing in every industry. That’s because no matter how well you plan, there will always be times when deadlines move. Project crashing with CPM gets you to the finish line faster.

Here are some examples of the upsides and risks from real-life project crashing use cases:

• Home Renovation: Zucker provides a simple example that most homeowners will relate to: kitchen renovation. With all the steps and predecessors required to put a new kitchen in place, you might need to rearrange the order of your tasks. “Reconsider what you think is critical or what designers traditionally tell you: painting before cabinets and flooring before painting,” says Zucker. “Instead, be flexible. Move things along in what might not be deemed the ‘right way.’ For example, there may be unforeseen circumstances such as supply chain and delivery issues, very common in recent times, so appliances come later than planned. Do what you can to keep the project moving, and crash portions of the project instead of the entire process.”
• Vehicle Design: “My client, a major vehicle manufacturer, bought another brand,” shares Quigley. “We had to work out how to use a single engineering system that would work for both vehicles while having unique brand features for the two different brands. It was a major undertaking with many people, parts, time pressures, and goals. My plan was put into place, and thanks to monitoring, it became clear that several tasks were not being handled correctly by the team member. Using our crashing plan and sharp oversight, we brought the project in at the rush deadline, although we had to use a large budget to cover the extra team time and resource costs.”
• Software Product Development: Zucker says that, even more than in other projects, software product development requires reviewing and reconsidering objectives at the beginning and throughout the project. It also requires that teams manage the approval process, which can be far slower because of all the unknowns.
• Financial Services: “An accounting rule change affected my client, a large, international organization. I had to execute and overhaul MIS accounting in less than a year,” Zucker reports. “In this case, because it was a legal issue, it simply had to be done at a certain date to meet regulations.” Management wasn’t as concerned as they should have been with costs and threw a lot of money at the project before Zucker came on board. Management had flown in new team members before a workable plan was in place. This created even more problems and incurred more crashing. The deadline was met, but it required rework, ongoing planning, and close supervision.
• Construction: Builders use CPM on major projects because it can help them effectively manage both normal projects and project crashing. Contracts often have a set deadline, so when things fall behind, crashing can help bridge some of the time gaps. However, this usually comes with cost overruns. Owners and contractors of commercial and industrial structures rely on critical paths and documentation to work with subcontractors, share progress with clients, and provide evidence in legal disputes. Using CPM to manage construction projects and downloading project management software are best practices.

Benefits of Crashing a Project

The main benefit of project crashing is that it helps project managers meet business demands. Competitive forces, executive decisions, or customer demands might require earlier-than-usual deadlines. Successful project crashing leads to faster execution, more adaptability, and increased customer satisfaction.

“Crashing the project can help conclude the project,” says Quigley. “If the project result is a revenue-generating endeavor, it will bring the revenue stream to the organization more quickly.”

Here are some benefits of project crashing:

• Increased Ability to Meet Tight Deadlines: Speed and quality are always a combination that pleases stakeholders, management, and teams. As a bonus, project crashing can be instructive even for “regular” to grow efficiency and a body of best practices.
• Increased Customer Satisfaction: Customers appreciate when you finish tasks early. Delivering on time or early will create long-term relationships and reflect well on your brand.
• Faster Execution: Using resources efficiently and eliminating non-essential elements can put you ahead of a tight deadline. Organization, monitoring, meticulous attention to detail, and quick progress can make project managers rock stars.
• More Adaptability: Project crashing is a save-the-day move when projects fall off schedule. Acts of nature, supply chain problems, personnel shortages, and infrastructure issues can cause projects to fall behind. In these instances, project crashing can bring a project back from the brink.

Risks of Crashing a Project

Crashing projects is risky. The main risks include increased costs and lower quality. Project crashing can also cause further delays, if rushed work needs to be redone. Meticulous planning and monitoring can help decrease the likelihood of these risks.

“The downside of crashing is reworking, as well as time and money lost. The threat looms large,” warns Quigley. “There is also a domino effect on dependent tasks that slows progress and causes the need for additional redos. We need to recognize that crashing a project does not necessarily lead to the outcomes we desire, specifically the delivery of the project objective ahead of the predicted time without crashing.”

Here are some risks you can expect when crashing a project:

• Increased Budget: Crashing projects can be expensive. There is always a risk that the time-cost trade-off will not be worth it in the end. Consider using a project crashing calculator to keep crashing costs reasonable.
• External Risks: Like any project, projects you are crashing can be impacted by external risks, such as natural disasters, supply chain issues, delayed shipments, changes in policy, employee illnesses, and more.
• Decreased Quality: Possibly the most significant risk of project crashing is a decline in quality. Rushing tasks, bringing in new team members, and cutting corners can all lead to a decrease in quality, which can have a devastating impact on customer relationships.
• The Human Factor: “Adding people and vendors can be a blessing and a curse,” notes Zucker. “You need to train people, whether internal or external and potentially pull them off other work, which can create a whole new set of problems and chaos.”
• Rework: “This is one of the greatest hazards in project crashing,” says Quigley. “In the work I do for clients in the heavy machinery, vehicles, and aerospace industries, safety considerations must come before speed or savings. In other words, it's life or death, and rework is often the price paid when deadlines shorten.”
• Low Suitability for Some Projects: Zucker and Quigley stress that project crashing, even with CPM, is not as effective in projects with too many unknowns. “Crashing does not work well on knowledge work projects, in my opinion, such as software development, rather than manufacturing with clearer milestones and tasks,” says Zucker.

How Do You Solve a Crashing Problem in Project Management?

The first step to solving a crashing problem in project management is to weigh potential risks. Consider other options. If crashing is your best bet, follow best practices, take advantage of calculators and project management software, and involve your stakeholders.

Solving a Crashing Problem with CPM: Lead and Lag Time Monitoring

Quigley explains his approach to project crashing problems. “When the project result is desired or expected to be delivered before a non-crashed schedule predicts possible,” explains Quigley, “we are trading an increase in risk and costs to reduce what the list of tasks and dependencies indicates likely to be the concluding date of the project.”

Here are some of Quigley’s tips for solving a crashing problem with CPM:

Project Driver: “If we are crashing the project, we usually have a customer that desires the delivery earlier than what appears to be possible. We can use leads and an acceleration of the successor activity on finish-to-start activity relationships,” says Quigley. “Lags or delays in the successor activity can be found in all activity relationship types. We make adjustments to the project task dependencies to help compress the schedule. We need not have everything start after the previous task has been completed, known as finish-to-start dependency. Lead time changes the finish-to-start dependency to have the depending task start a determined amount of time before the end of the preceding task.”

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