Milestone List

Purpose

The milestone list (normally coupled with a milestone chart) is used to provide a series of indicators regarding project progress to date and achievements or goals yet to be reached. It gives management a clear sense of specific levels of accomplishment (or consumption). The milestone list affords team members the same information, but more as a gauge of their own levels of achievement.

Application

The milestone list is generated after the planning process is sufficiently complete that critical process steps have been identified. It is used in management meetings as a simple checklist to clarify which accomplishments have been met and which have not. Because milestones are binary (either met/complete or not), they present information to management or the customer in a clear, comprehensible form. For team members, milestones provide both a history of accomplishment as well as a set of goals for the future. Every milestone checked brings the project one step closer to fruition.

Content

There are a wide variety of milestones. Some are rooted in specific levels of work accomplishment, such as a phase or deliverable. As such (and since milestones are binary), they are often expressed in the past tense: “Phase One Complete” or “Prototype Delivered.” They may also reflect the passage of time or expenditure of resources. “Project Day 1000” or “Budget 50% Consumed” may be flagged as significant milestones in a major project. The common characteristics are that they reflect a single significant level of accomplishment. The milestone list is the aggregation of the milestones determined to be significant by the project manager, management, the customer, and/or the team. If the customer has a set of distinct milestones that they wish to see, it may mean one project will have multiple milestone lists. Milestones may be displayed across a timeline in a chart, with an open diamond (◊) representing a milestone that has not yet been met, and a closed diamond (♦)
representing a milestone that has been achieved. Each of the diamonds (open or closed) should be accompanied by a few-word description of the type of accomplishment the milestone represents.

Approaches

Some organizations will only track milestones requested by the customer. Others will only track those mandated by the organization’s processes. Still others will only select those milestones that motivate the team toward specific goals. The milestone list should reflect project and organizational needs.

Considerations

Some project managers become overly zealous in their application of milestones, using them to denote even the most insignificant accomplishment. This does provide more detailed tracking, but it also limits the capacity of the milestone to serve as a motivator. The more significant the accomplishment associated with the milestone, the greater its potential to inspire performance.

Some individuals attempt to blur the line between milestones and activities, trying to establish milestones that are “half-complete.” That cannot be. Milestones are activities with no duration—they are either complete or not. If a milestone in the milestone list can be identified as “halfway done,” it probably belongs in the activity list, rather than in the milestone list.