What are the options available to the Project Manager to reduce the duration of the project?

Answer 1

Schedule compression is an attempt to shorten the project schedule without changing the project scope. It may be necessary in order to deal with schedule-related constraints and objectives. It is true that you, the project manager, build the schedule through cold, hard mathematical analysis, and you don't just accept whatever schedule goals come down the pipeline from elsewhere (usually the top), such as from the customer or the project sponsor. However, once you have the schedule built through analysis, you can attempt to accommodate some critical stakeholder expectations or hard deadlines, such as a predetermined project finish date.

In the previous section we already saw about Resource Leveling that can be used to accommodate hard deadlines for certain activities. There are two other techniques that can be used for compressing the project schedule. They are:

Crashing - This is a project schedule compression technique in which cost and schedule tradeoffs are analyzed to decrease the project duration with minimal additional cost. A number of alternatives are analyzed, including the assignment of additional resources. Approving overtime pay for project resources is another example of crashing.

Fast tracking - This is a project schedule compression technique used to decrease the project duration by performing project phases or some schedule activities within a phase in parallel that would normally be performed in sequence. For example, testing of a product can start when some of its components are finished, rather than waiting for the whole product to be completed.