Speedrun
Etymology
From video-game culture of the 1990s and 2000s (an early scene grew around id Software’s "Doom"), where players raced to finish games in record time, hunting glitches and skips. "To speedrun" something now means to rush through it at maximum pace. The word carries admiration for efficiency with a hint of corner-cutting.
noun · /SPEED-run/
An attempt to complete something as fast as humanly possible, often by exploiting shortcuts and quirks.
What it names
Optimization for raw speed — stripping a task to the fastest route, elegance be damned.
Example
We speedran the onboarding so the new hire could ship code by Friday.
Related idea
A speedrun optimizes for time by any means, whereas min-maxing optimizes for outcome, pouring resources into strengths while starving weaknesses.
See also