What is Fast Tracking?
Fast tracking compresses the schedule by performing activities in parallel that were planned in sequence. It costs nothing extra up front — its price is risk, because downstream work begins before upstream work is confirmed, and rework is the classic result.
It's the first compression technique to consider when there's no additional budget, and the wrong one when the overlapped activities are genuinely dependent.
Worked example
Instead of finishing design before starting build, the team begins building the stable modules while design finishes the rest. No new cost — but if late design changes hit modules already built, there\'s rework. That risk is the price of fast tracking.