Crashing a Project using Microsoft Excel

Project Scheduling is an essential aspect of Project Management. In most case, after the Project Schedule has been prepared or during the Project execution, the Project Schedule needs to be crashed.

Crashing a Project means to reduce the total duration of the Project. Crashing a Project involves a cost called the Crash Cost. So, while Crashing a Project, we need ensuring that we increase the Project Cost by the least amount.

Crashing a Project optimally can be conducted using Linear Programming. As Microsoft Excel has support for Linear Programming, we can use Microsoft Excel to Crash a Project.

Using Microsoft Excel for Project Scheduling has 2 more advantages. The first advantage is that the nuances involved in Project Scheduling becomes clear (This is hidden by tools like Microsoft Project). The second advantage is that we do not need additional license for tools like Microsoft Project. Most importantly, we will discuss aspects of Project Scheduling which cannot be conducted using tools like Microsoft Project and Primavera.

In this Project, we will use Microsoft Excel to prepare a Project Schedule and then we will see how we can Crash the Project Schedule.

This Guided Project was created by a Coursera community member.