Having worked with and studied fast teams over the past 20+ years, they all share a common set of practices for executing their projects. They all:

Start with the end in mind -- first identify the goal and what needs to be accomplished by the end of the project, then plan to achieve the end (Stephen Covey's 7 Habits discusses the end-in-mind concept)
Start without constraints -- so they work to the early schedule and resolve obstacles along the way
Build a realistic plan -- so they know the gap between reality and target from day one
Use the plan to create a sense of urgency -- before-the-fact
Breakdown the near-term into short interval tasks for better tracking and pull-in
Use the schedule to engage the team and the customer to accelerate the schedule
Perform frequent refreshes (update, pull-in), often every day -- the rhythm produces accountability
Manage using schedule trends of the gap between target and predicted dates
Manage the program through the schedule vs. the schedule as a reporter
Are comfortable with being "roughly right"... plan from macro to micro detail over time

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