Schedule compression techniques is part of the Schedule Development process (Because you use them when you build your schedule.) A schedule compression technique is a technique you use to, well, compress your schedule. If you plan out your schedule and you find that the projected end date is too late, then you can use these techniques to bring that date in. However, each of them has its own special kind of cost, and you need to consider that cost when you do it.

The first kind of schedule compression technique is crashing the schedule. That means adding resources to the schedule. You'll generally want to add those resources to the critical path activities because the critical path is the longest path through your schedule. Shortening it will hopefully shorten your project duration. And this can work -- if you add resources to the critical path, then there's a good chance that your new estimate will be lower. But there's a big drawback: those extra resources cost more. And while crashing the schedule doesn't always shorten it, it does always add cost.

The second kind of schedule compression technique is fast tracking. That's when you shorten the critical path by overlapping the activities on it. Again, the goal is to reduce the total duration of the critical path, which will bring the end date closer. Fast tracking has its own downside: it increases risk to your project. A lot of times, you chose not to overlap two activities because you needed the results of one before the other started. Sometimes you can find ways to start the second task before the first one is done, but if the first one is late or doesn't produce deliverables required to do the second task, then your project can run into serious trouble. That's why fast tracking adds risk to the project.

Thanks to Sheela, Smitha, Yuko, Smitha's Mom, Kiran, Rajeev, Yoshi, Kailash & Ganesh and my wife Prabha for planning this wonderful get-together.