Day 3: Project Schedule Compression,

Risk Assessment, Analysis & Evaluation

Presented by Jackson J. Kilimba

Management Consultant
Strategy, Entrepreneurship Development &
Finance

Saturday, February 4, 2023 [email protected] 1

 Project Schedule Compression
Techniques

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 Minimizing Schedule Risks
• Every project manager knows that schedules change
constantly.
• And unfortunately, schedules usually don't get shorter --
they get longer!
• Or your customer/stakeholder wants the product delivered
sooner.
• And now, what looked like a perfect schedule at the
beginning of the project is a total mess and you will never be
able to complete your project on time!
• Unless of course you take immediate action in the form of
crashing or fast tracking.

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 Schedule Compression
• Schedule compression is used when you want to shorten
the duration of your project without changing project
scope.
• This is useful in those situations when you have fallen
behind the original schedule and now need to "catch up",
• or if you want to finish sooner because a competitor is
working on the same type of product and you want to be
first to market.
• It may also be a strategic decision to complete a project
more quickly than originally scheduled based on other
factors.
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 Crashing & Fast Tracking
• Crashing
• Add resources to your project so you can finish
faster.
• Crashing almost always involves a financial cost.
• Fast Tracking/Schedule compression
• Perform tasks in parallel so you can finish faster.
• Overlapping tasks in this way often increases risk.
• Compressing a schedule means that you will be
conducting project activities in parallel.
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 … & Tracking
• Schedule compression should always be
focused on the critical path of your project,
• This is because the critical path defines the
end date of your project.
• And if you want to finish your project sooner
then it does not make sense to compress any
activities that have no effect on your project
end date.

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 Fast Tracking a Project
• Fast tracking is applied by re-scheduling various
activities within the project to be worked on
simultaneously instead of waiting for each piece
to be completed separately. 
• Always start with this technique first. Why?
Because there is no new cost involved.
• You are basically "just rearranging the schedule".
• However, this method can only be used if
activities can actually be overlapped.
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 Fast …
• For example it is possible to begin the
construction of a prototype even if the design
specifications are not 100% complete.
• You can overlap them as long as enough of
the specifications have been defined for you
to begin prototype development.
• The risk involved with fast tracking is that
problems can occur if parallel aspects of the
project include dependencies.
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 Fast …
• In our example your risk is that you need to
rework the prototype if the design is changed
half way through the process.
• But your opportunity is that production will be
done much sooner if the design remains
stable.

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 Fast …
• You are reviewing your project schedule and notice
that your project end-date has slipped beyond the
promised end-date.
• You need to bring things back on track without
spending any additional money.
• A detailed analysis shows that there are three tasks
that can be started earlier in order to shorten the
project:
• End-user documentation can begin after integration
testing but before final sign-off.
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 Example
• User training sessions can be started before the final
system is set up and installed if the first 3 sessions can be
trained using the test system
• Set up and installation of the final system could be started
three days before testing is complete.
• Each of these ideas will shorten your schedule, but also add
additional risk to the project.
• It is your responsibility as the project manager to weigh the
options against each other and determine which (or all) of
these you will apply in order to shorten the schedule.

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 Fast Tracking Illustration

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 Crashing a Project
• When the crashing approach is used, any
additional costs associated with rushing the
project are reviewed against the possible benefits
of completing the project on a faster timeline.
• Additional items to consider when using the
crashing approach include adding more resources
for the project, allowing additional overtime,
paying extra to receive delivery of critical
components more quickly, etc.

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 Crashing …
• Crashing only works when additional
resources allow you to complete the project
sooner.
• For instance, crashing will not work by adding
more human resources when "the concrete in
the foundation has to dry for 3 days".

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 Crashing Illustrated
• You are leading a project to implement new
regulations in your organization.
• The new law comes into effect on June 30th
and every day of delay will cost your
organization a government imposed fine.
• You have already adjusted and streamlined the
project schedule as much as possible but no
further improvement seems possible without
drastic measures.
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 Crashing …
• In a discussion with the project sponsor you
both agree that finishing the project on
schedule is the primary constraint.
• Additional budget must be requested.

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 Crashing …
• Crashing a schedule involves allocating more
resources so that an activity can be completed on
time or before time,
• This assumes that by deploying more resources the
activity can be completed earlier.
• When you crash a schedule, you do not need to
crash all activities.
• The activities that impact the schedule are those
with a float of zero, i.e. activities on the critical path.

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 … Example
• So, You analyze the critical path.
• You identify all tasks that can be shortened by
adding additional resources.
• You make a calculation for each task, determining
the cost and number of days saved by adding
additional resources.
• You identify the least costly approach.
• You provide a crashing budget and an updated
schedule to the project sponsor.
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 Project Crashing Illustrated

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 In Summary
• Crashing and fast tracking/Compressing are
scheduling techniques that you may want to
implement when the project is behind schedule.
• As you have already noticed by now, both of
these techniques come with their own
challenges and risks.
• To apply either of these techniques, you need to
have a firm understanding of precedence
diagrams and critical path methods.
Saturday, February 4, 2023 [email protected] 20
 … Summary
• Similar to Crashing, Compressing is not
applicable to all project activities.
• For example, you cannot ordinarily implement
the “Hire Workers” and “Dig Foundation”
activities in parallel
• This is because to dig a foundation you need
to have hired someone to do the digging!

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 … Summary
The risks associated with Crashing include:
• Budget: Since you allocated more resources, you
will not deliver the project on-budget.
• Demoralization: Existing resources may get
demoralized by the increase in people to
complete activities that were originally assigned
to them.
• Coordination: More resources translates to an
increase in communication challenges.
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 … Summary
• Coordination is the main risk associated with
Schedule Compression. 
• Best Practice: Given a choice between
crashing and fast tracking, always attempt fast
tracking (compressing) first. It is less risky.

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 Practical Use of Fast Tracking and Crashing in
Projects
• We've discussed both fast tracking and
crashing as a means of meeting deadlines.
• However, these techniques to meet the
deadlines do come with their own
costs/technical debt
• The examples we've given above are intended
to explain crashing and fast tracking from a
textbook perspective.

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 Practical Use …
• They explain the theoretical application of these
techniques in a simple situation in order to show how
they work on paper!
• But what about using these techniques
on actual projects?
• Is it possible to simply implement the textbook
process, or are there any specific insights that we have
to take into consideration?
• What are the possible lessons learned from other
project managers?
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 Risk Assessment, Analysis &
Evaluation

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 Risk Management Activities: A Review

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 Risk Assessment: Some Revision

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 The “Five” Key Risk Elements
We can break project management risks down into five
elements:
• 1. Risk event: What might happen to affect your
project?
• 2. Risk timeframe: When is it likely to happen?
• 3. Probability: What’s are the chances of it happening?
• 4. Impact: What’s the expected outcome?
• 5. Factors: What events might forewarn or trigger the
risk event?

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 Risks & Their “Management”?
• Every time you backup files on an external drive,
or in cloud storage like Drop-box, you’re
practicing risk management!
• The collapsible umbrella that lives in your bag rain
or shine? That is risk management as well.
• Start applying that same proactive preparedness
to your “projects” and nothing will shake you
from your project goals / objectives.

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 Risk Analysis Tools & Techniques
Tools and Techniques used for Risk Analysis: „
• 1. Expert estimates and judgment „
• 2. Expected value (likelihood x„ impact)
• 3. Decision trees „ (probable outcomes)
• 4. Statistical sums ( “ ) ‰
• 5. Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT-
TIME), (PERT-COST), (via Triangulation/ three-point-
estimate values)
• 6. Computer simulation -‰ (Monte Carlo)
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 Assessing Project Risk
• The first thing you'll want to do is prepare a
Risk Assessment to get a better understanding
of the kinds of risks you’re facing and their
possible consequences.
• Here's how, step-by-step:
• Step 1: Identify potential risks. Sit down and
create a list of every possible risk and
opportunity you can think of.

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 Assessing …
• If you only focus on the threats, you could
miss out on the chance to deliver unexpected
value to the customer or client.
• Ask your team to help you brainstorm during
the project planning process, since they might
see possibilities that you don't.

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 Assessing …
• Step 2: Determine probability. What are the
odds a certain risk will occur?
• It’s a lot more likely that a key team member will
be out for a week with the flu than develop total
amnesia.
• Rate each risk with high, medium, or low
probability.
• Step 3: Determine Impact. What would happen
if each risk occurred?
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 Assessing …
• Would your final delivery date get pushed
back? Would you go over budget?
• Identify which risks have the biggest effect on
your project's outcomes, and rate them as
high impact.
• Rate the rest as medium or low impact risks.

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 Response Plan
• Once you’ve completed your risk
assessment, you’re ready to create your risk
management response plan (using
appropriate risk management tools).
• Note that risk management is an ongoing
process!

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Step 4: Determine Your Risk Preference
• How much risk can you take on before you consider
abandoning the project?
• This is an essential conversation to have with your
stakeholders.
• Their success is on the line, too. There are a lot of issues to
discuss: do they want to be informed when risks happen?
• Or will it depend on the level of impact? If certain risks
occur that could derail the project, do they want to be
consulted first or do you have the authority to act right
away?

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 … Preference
• Make sure everyone knows the plan of attack
and agrees on the strategy. 
• Stakeholder conflict is one risk you can
counteract with open communication.

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 Step 5: Determine Which Risks to Manage
using a Risk Matrix
• Once you've determined the project's risk
tolerance level, you can start to identify which
risks are worth your time and attention.
• Even if a risk has a high probability of
occurring, if its impact is small — (say it would
add $200 to your project costs and your
budget is $500 million) — you may choose to
ignore it if counteracting the risk is an
inefficient use of your time and resources.
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 Step 6: Prioritization/Ranking?
• Pay special attention to that upper-right quadrant.
• These are risks that are both high probability and
high impact.
• They’re more likely to happen, and if they do, it
could be game over for your project.
• In these instances, you’ll want to be proactive in
lowering the probability that the risk will occur (if
possible),
• or have a definite plan in place to counter its effects.

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 Step 7: What Triggers the Risk?
• What factors/cues might indicate a particular
risk is imminent?
• If someone in the office starts sneezing and
coughing, that could be a "trigger" your team is
about to get hit with the flu bug.
• Establish roles and responsibilities for
monitoring triggers among your team, and
determine what steps should be taken if one
pops up.
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 Step 8: Create an Action Plan
• What can be done to reduce the probability of
a risk occurring,
• or minimize its negative impact? (Can you
provide medication during flu season?)
• Or spread important tasks among the team so
progress can be made even if someone’s out
for a few days?)

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 … Action Plan
• If a risk occurs, what's the most effective
response? What will your team do, and who's
responsible for what?
• Make sure you've thought each piece through
and everyone on your team knows the plan.

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 Step 9: Evaluate
• After your project wraps up, step back and consider
which parts of your strategy were successful.
• How effective were your triggers in forewarning
risks?
• How effectively did you react to those triggers, and
were you able to successfully prevent any risks from
affecting the project outcomes?
• What could be done to improve for the next
project?

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 Discussion Exercises
FOOD FOR THOUGHT:
• 1. For a public/private sector entity, under what specific
circumstances may you not be able to use (a) Fast Tracking
(b) schedule crashing? Explain/Discuss with illustrative
examples.
• 2. Using a project familiar to you, Illustrate when and where
these tools have been used to advantage.
• 3. Schedule compression techniques have advantages &
disadvantages. List, discuss and illustrate them with
examples.
• 4. What is the importance of knowing “project risk-
triggers”? Illustrate.
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