Boost the Power of Milestones

Project managers typically show progress with milestones that represent the completion of significant deliverables. But that only scratches the surface of what milestones can show for progress. Here are some other ways to highlight progress with milestones.

• Progress points on the timeline. Particularly for longer projects, you can create milestones to denote that one quarter, one half, and three quarters of the tasks on your timeline are complete. It’s a great way to show high-level progress on your schedule. 
• Circumvented risks. Risks make stakeholders nervous. Circumvented risks are high risk items that have been resolved — through successful mitigation or because the risk did not come to fruition. Create milestones to identify these positive events in your schedule. Along with adding these circumvented risks to your milestone chart, be sure to update the overall risk level of the project, too.
• Positive stakeholder surveys. One way to measure the success of your project is to survey stakeholders about their satisfaction with it. Based on events surrounding the project, stakeholder satisfaction can waiver, particularly early in the project before they see results. Periodically survey your stakeholders. Then, create a milestone when you reach a pre-determined level of stakeholder satisfaction.
• Significant non-deliverable items on the critical path. Not all critical path items refer to deliverables. Significant critical path items can include sink points where multiple paths through the project schedule come together, the acquisition of critical staff members, or a notable decision by a regulatory body. Add milestones to show these items on your schedule.
• External dependencies. The acquisition of permits and certifications are worth noting. The conclusion of contract negotiations and other tasks involving external entities can be indications of progress. Use milestones in the project to identify and track them.

Note: Many technical projects use milestones only to show technical task completion. To make sure your progress reports are useful, include milestones for events that are meaningful to the business, such as process finalizations or positive business test results.

There’s really no end to what you can use milestones for. What other events and accomplishments do you highlight with milestones?

For more about milestones, check out my Project Management Foundations: Schedules course.

Coming Up

Office Hours: Great Meetings Build Great Teams July 11, 2023, 11am MT

Although great meetings won’t guarantee project success, poorly run meetings could lead to project problems. In this Office Hours broadcast, I’ll be talking with Jim Stewart, PMP and Rich Malzman, PMP about how to keep your necessary meetings from becoming necessary evils. Join us for a fun and informative session. (Bring your questions for a chance to win a complimentary eBook of Great Meetings Build Great Teams. Sign up here.

 

Office Hours: Gen AI: The Project Manager’s Edge July 19, 2023, 9am MT

AI is transforming project management in several ways, such as taking over the creation of complex and realistic schedules through analysis of all available data. As a project manager, you may wonder how to harness generative AI applications in your work and how to implement them successfully. Join me and my fellow LinkedIn instructors, Doug Rose, Dave Birss, and Christina Charenkova to explore how to put AI to work on your projects. Sign up here. 

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This article belongs to the Bonnie’s Project Pointers newsletter series, which has more than 40,000 subscribers. This newsletter is 100% written by a human (no aliens or AIs involved). If you like this article, you can subscribe to receive notifications when a new article posts.

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