In this article we’ll unpack the concept of project milestones and their place in project management. We’ll ask…
– How can they help deliver successful outcomes and achieve project goals?
– How are ‘milestones’ different from ‘tasks?’
– What are their benefits?
And we’ll also take a look at how to use milestones in project management tools like Project.co.
What is a project milestone?
Project management milestones are any important events that mark the progress of a project.
Traditionally, in the days before GPS and sophisticated road networks, ‘milestones’ were pretty primitive stone signs that lined popular routes and advised travellers how far they were from their destination.
In short, they broke the journey up into smaller chunks – reassuring the traveller that they were still on the right route. And, as long as they kept passing milestones, they would arrive at their end destination.
And that’s exactly the job project milestones do now: they’re significant events in the project timeline, boxes to tick, safe in the knowledge that – if they get done – the project itself will be completed successfully.
What’s the difference between milestones and tasks?
Project milestones are often confused with tasks – but there’s an important difference.
Tasks are the individual, granular actions that need to be completed in order to achieve a milestone. We could illustrate the way projects, milestones and tasks work together as follows:
Some project milestone examples might include:
– The approval of the project budget.
– The signing of a contract.
– The completion of key deliverables.
– The launch of the project, e.g. a ‘go live’ date on a website, or a client sign-off.
– The completion of training for staff on the project.
Within each milestone you can see there could be any number of individual tasks. But what’s important to know is that milestones are the things that signify ‘momentum’ in our project and keep things moving forward to completion.
Without tracking milestones, it suddenly becomes much more difficult to assess progress and ensure that the project schedule stays on course.
Benefits of using project milestones in project management
We’ve already touched on a few benefits of this methodology but let’s dig down into three specific benefits of using milestones in project management:
1. Track and communicate progress
Project milestones are a great way to measure – and communicate -a project’s progress to stakeholders. They can be used to measure project progress, identify risks, and track dependencies so you get a much clearer picture of where things are up to at any given time, and can keep your team and clients in the picture.
2. Identify problems early
The saying that ‘you can’t improve what you don’t measure’ rings really true as a project manager. Milestones are a super obvious way to measure a project’s progress. Regular check-ins can help you identify potential problems early on – and respond accordingly with changes like allocating extra resources. Milestones also help you identify and forecast delays and problems more accurately – so you can communicate these to your stakeholders. Delays and problems are clearly less disruptive and damaging when they’re accompanied by plenty of prior notice.
3. Optimised chance of success
There’s never a guarantee of success but milestones ultimately help to ensure that a project stands the best possible chance of being completed on time, within budget and up to standard. They reduce the risk of projects veering off course and keep everyone on track.
Tracking project milestones in Project.co
The best way to track milestones in Project.co is by using our powerful ‘Tasks’ functionality.
Start by creating your project with just a few clicks, giving it a name.
Invite all the people who need to be involved in the project:
Then, add the ‘Tasks’ to your project.
If you haven’t already, take some time to break down your project into the various milestones you need. Maybe jot these down on a piece of paper and get them straight in your mind: What are the staging posts along the way to project success? What are the ‘events’ that need to happen, the ‘deliverables’ that need to be delivered, and when? Each of the milestones you scribble down should be created as Tasks on your Project.co project.
These tasks can be allocated to people, dates can be assigned and files can be uploaded, among other features. Each task also has its own chat feed for people allocated to that task to discuss and collaborate on it. You can also create checklists so the individual ‘tasks’ within each milestone can be worked through.
Schedule check ins and progress reports to keep on top of your project milestones. And use our powerful Task views to monitor, measure and manage capacity, progress and workload throughout your team. You can even use drag-and-drop functionality to move things around in seconds.
Thanks for reading
Project milestones are like your friends: they remind you how far you’ve come and give you something to celebrate. But unlike your friends, project milestones don’t get drunk and make bad decisions – unless, of course, you’re the project manager. In which case, all bets are off.
Seriously, for project managers, milestones represent an important part of the overall project plan. By setting clear milestones throughout a project’s life cycle, and then keeping on top of them at every project phase – like the milestones of old – you can give yourself the best possible chance of making steady progress along the right road, so you don’t end up in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly – remember that project milestones give you something to celebrate! After all, when you’re working on a long-term project, it’s easy to get bogged down in the day-to-day grind. Milestones give you a chance to step back and appreciate all the hard work you and your team have put in.
So get out there, create a Project.co account and hit those milestones! Your project – and your sanity – will thank you for it.
