Milestones

From apse

1 Problem
2 Context
3 Discussion
4 Solution
5 References
6 Related Patterns

[edit] Problem

Not having well-defined Milestones leaves project participants without any reference points by witch to gauge progress.

[edit] Context

Ideally Milestones are added in as part of the project planning process. Their usefulness is indispensable when planning more complex projects with many steps or individual goals.

[edit] Discussion

One of the best ways to accurately gauge a projects progress is to track its Milestones. For a simple example suppose I my project was to make chocolate chip cookies and I did not use Milestones.

My project plan might look like this:

Buy ingredients
Mix ingenious
Bake
Enjoy cookies

Note: this plan is little more then a list of things to do. Also I have no way to tell how long each step will take.

Now this is I plan using Milestones

1 Buy ingredients time: 1 hour due by 2:00
2. Mix ingredients time: 30 min due by 2:30
3. Bake: time: 25 min due by 2:55
4: enjoy: time: indefinite

Not how we can now predict that the cookies will take approximately 2 hours to make start to finish.

Once you have milestones part way through a project life-cycle, and project participants can see how things increasingly piece together, the milestones can serve as inspiration and motivation to accomplish the goals of the project.

Milestones can be recorded and arranged chronologically to better facilitate their use.

[edit] Solution

Using milestones gives any project plan the ability to track its progress incrementally and reliably track how much time each part is taking. Milestones are an indispensable part of any more complex plan and they are worth the investment of time to include in any project plan that is even mildly complicated.

When in the beginning of the project planning process, be sure to define and include milestones within the schedule. This will also help the process of Evaluation.