• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
entry software corporation

Entry Software Corporation

Entry

  • About Us
    • Contact us
    • Our Story
    • Message from the CEO
    • Customer Quotes and Case Studies
    • Press Releases
  • TeamHeadquarters
    • Teamheadquarters Overview
    • Value Proposition
    • Help Desk
    • Project Management
    • Resource Management
    • Team Resource Management
    • My Company
    • My Organizations
    • TeamHeadquarters Videos
  • Pricing
    • Cloud Pricing
    • Services
  • Industries
    • Transportation
    • Education
    • Healthcare
    • Manufacturing
    • Municipalities
    • Service Business
  • Get a Demo

Proper use of Project Milestones in the Field of Project Management

June 12, 2017 by Mark Donais

Proper use of project milestones

Setting the right project milestones can keep your projects on track. Setting project milestones and developing a milestone schedule is a key factors in the success of a project. By following a little advice from experts in the project management field, you can increase your project success

Project: A project is a temporary endeavour undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result. It has a defined start and endpoint. PMBOK 4th Edition

Milestone: A milestone is a significant event in a project that occurs at a point in time. A milestone schedule uses deliverables as a platform to identify major segments of work and end dates. Milestones should be natural, necessary control points in the project and should be easy for everyone to recognize. (Project Management, The Managerial Process, Gray & Larson)

Paul Brough, an expert in Building Project Management, is an avowed user of project milestones and figures that their proper usage can help you avoid common pitfalls experienced project schedulers encounter.  He says:

“One of the biggest pitfalls met in using milestones occurs when trying to restrict a milestone to a particular date in the schedule, as opposed to being logic driven. .. Ideally, milestones should be logically tied to related schedule activities wherever possible. This means that, at a minimum, a start milestone should have successor, and a finish milestone should have a predecessor.”

Tips

Other experts, including Ginny Edwards of Bright Hub Project Management, tell us that when determining your project milestones use the following guidelines:

  • Frequency – As a project manager, you may be tempted to overuse milestones as a motivation tool to keep the team moving along the ladder to reach the surface of success, but don’t fall into the trap of labelling every task completion as a milestone. In turn, don’t adopt the other extreme approach by ignoring or not recognizing significant and relevant events as milestones, particularly at junctions of the critical path. A good compromise is to consistently designate important deliverables as milestones.
  • Timing – Milestones that are spaced too far apart will not have the benefit of the momentum derived from motivating team members by recognizing their major achievements. However, when milestones, appropriately represented as diamonds in MS Project, are placed too close together they quickly lose their lustre and distinctiveness. As a rule of thumb tries to space milestones at intervals for no longer than every two weeks for projects of several months in duration.
  • Visibility – Milestones need to be placed prominently in the project’s schedule and tracked periodically. Make sure that your milestones have been incorporated into your project scheduling, calendar, or another project-tracking software program.
  • Accountability – Milestones are commitments that must be met on time. If a milestone is missed, it needs to be addressed immediately by re-examining the resources to determine if they are properly matched to the objectives.
  • Fallibility – It may sound counter-intuitive, but you should select challenging milestones that carry a degree of risk for failure. Not every venture NASA undertook to pave the way for the Apollo 11 mission was successful. Ranger 3, an unmanned probe sent to study the Moon missed its target by 22,000 miles. Don’t forget to treat milestones as learning experiences and opportunities to make adjustments early in the project’s execution.

TeamHeadquarters provides full Milestone Management and reporting. Contact Entry Software for more information.

Filed Under: Milestones, Project Management Tagged With: milestone, project management, project milestone

About Mark Donais

Primary Sidebar

TEAMHEADQUARTERS OVERVIEW

TEAMHEADQUARTERS EXPLAINER VIDEO

Recent Posts

  • Perfecting the project completion criteria
  • Why Your Help Desk Software Should Have Asset Management
  • Understanding Service Level Agreements (SLA)
  • Improving Customer Service
  • Remote Project Management

Recent Comments

  1. 5 Reasons Why TeamHeadquarters Will Organize and Simplify Your Project Delivery Service - PMLinks.com on Customer Self-Service Portal Improves IT Customer Service Ratings

Archives

  • October 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • March 2019
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017

Categories

  • Agile
  • Audiences
  • Business
  • Capacity Planning
  • Case Study
  • Change Management
  • Client Management
  • Client Services
  • Cloud Based
  • Content strategy
  • Customer Service
  • Customer Tracking
  • Education
  • Facilities Management
  • Help Desk
  • Help Desk and Project Management Software
  • Help Desk Software
  • IT Help Desk
  • IT Managers
  • IT Strategy
  • IT Work Management
  • ITIL
  • ITIL Service Desk
  • ITSM
  • Leadership
  • Milestones
  • Multiple Projects
  • Never ending project
  • Operations Management
  • Prioritize Projects
  • Project Clarification
  • project delays
  • Project Management
  • Project Management Engagement
  • Project Management Software
  • Project Management Tools
  • Project Manager Communication
  • Project Negotiation
  • Project Scope
  • Projects Collision
  • Resource Management
  • SaaS
  • Schedule Management
  • Service Desk
  • Service Level Agreement
  • Small Business
  • Software
  • Strategy
  • Ticketing System
  • Time Management
  • Uncategorized
  • Work Management Software
  • Working Efficiently

Footer

Blog
Login to TeamHeadquarters™
Team Headquarters Help

Brochures & News

TeamHeadquarters™ brochure
Customer testimonials
Press Releases

Legal and Site

Privacy Policy

Free eBooks & Tools

  • IT Managers Guidebook to Implementing ITSM
  • The Essentials of Project Communication Success
  • Tracking Project Status Throughout the Engagement
  • ITSM Readiness Assessment
  • Challenges Facing IT Leaders when working with Disparate Systems
  • Customer Satisfaction Survey Best Practices

Entry Software Corporation

Founded in 1998, Entry Software Corporation has been leading the industry with service desk and project management software for manufacturing, transportation, healthcare, municipalities, service organizations, and education.

Entry Software Corporation © 1998 to 2022

 

Entry Software Corporation © 1998 to 2023