Crashing is a schedule compression technique used to reduce or shorten the

project schedule.

The PM can various measures to accomplish this goal. Some of the common
methods used are

 Adding additional resources to the critical path tasks

This option has various constraints such as the securing of the budget to add the
resources, and the availability of the resources.
 Reduce the project requirements or scope
This can be done only if the sponsor and major stakeholders agree to reduce the scope
After applying the crashing, the critical path might have changed and result in
creating a different critical path. Always revisit the project schedule to ensure the
schedule has been crashed.

5 Other Definitions
1. Crashing is the technique to use when fast tracking has not saved enough time on the
schedule. It is a technique in which resources are added to the project for the least cost
possible. Cost and schedule tradeoffs are analyzed to determine how to obtain the
greatest amount of compression for the least incremental cost.
2. Crashing refers to a particular variety of project schedule compression which is
performed for the purposes of decreasing total period of time (also known as the total
project schedule duration). The diminishing of the project duration typically take place
after a careful and thorough analysis of all possible project duration minimization
alternatives in which any and all methods to attain the maximum schedule duration for
the least additional cost.
3. When we say that an activity will take a certain number of days or weeks, what we really
mean is this activity normally takes this many Project Management Triangle days or
weeks. We could make it take less time, but to do so would cost more money. 
Spending more money to get something done more quickly is called “crashing”. There
are various methods of project schedule crashing, and the decision to crash should only
take place after you’ve carefully analyzed all of the possible alternatives.The key is to
attain maximum decrease in schedule time with minimum cost.
4. Crashing the schedule means to throw additional resources to the critical path without
necessarily getting the highest level of efficiency.
5. Crashing is another schedule compression technique where you add extra resources to
the project to compress the schedule. In crashing, you review the critical path and see
which activities can be completed by adding extra resources. You try to find the
activities that can be reduced the most by adding the least amount of cost. Once you
find those activities, you will apply the crashing technique.