🚀 The Dark Side of ‘Fast-Tracking’ Projects (And Why Your Team Hates It)

We’ve all been there—leadership drops the dreaded phrase: “We need to fast-track this!” Cue the collective groan from your team. 🏃💨

Sure, fast-tracking sounds great—like skipping the line at Starbucks. But in reality? It’s more like chugging 5 espressos and hoping you don’t crash.

Who doesn’t want to compress timelines, skip steps, and then act shocked when the project implodes like a soufflé in a hurricane? Let’s laugh (or cry) through the chaos.

📉 The Data: Fast-Tracking’s Dirty Little Secret
Various studies suggest that:
🔴 Over budget (one study suggests 65% overspend!)
🔴 40% of fast-tracked projects end up delayed anyway (“Go faster!” turns into “Why is this late?”)
🔴 With burned-out teams PTO requests skyrocket!

Fun Completely Made-Up Fact: The term “fast-tracking” was invented by someone who clearly never had to redo 3 months of work in 2 weeks.

🤔 Let’s Hear Your War Stories:
1️⃣ What’s the dumbest fast-track excuse you’ve heard? (“The board wants to see progress before their golf trip” wins extra points.)
2️⃣ What’s the most absurd fast-track disaster you’ve seen?
(Bonus points if it involved a spreadsheet named “FINAL_FINAL_v3_ACTUALFINAL.xlsx”)

There are reasons of course legitimate reasons to fast-track along with proper methods to do so and I’ll go into that in the next post. 😁

#ProjectManagement #Leadership #FastTrack #BusinessStrategy #LessonsLearned #thepmleader

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