a milestone is the end of a stage that marks the completion of a work package or phase, typically marked by a high level event such as completion, endorsement or signing of a deliverable, document or a high level review meeting.
In addition to signaling the completion of a key deliverable, a milestone may also signify an important decision or the derivation of a critical piece of information, which outlines or affects the future of a project. In this sense, a milestone not only signifies distance traveled (key stages in a project) but also indicates direction of travel since key decisions made at milestones may alter the route through the project plan.
Using Milestones in Scheduling
Milestones can add significant value to project scheduling. When combined with a sophisticated scheduling methodology such as PERT or CPM, milestones allow project management to much more accurately determine whether or not the project is on schedule. By constraining the dates associated with milestones, the critical path can be determined for major schedule intervals in addition to the entire project. Slack/float can also be calculated on each schedule interval. This segmentation of the project schedule into intervals allows earlier indication of schedule problems and a better view into the activities whose completion is critical to the project timeline.
Milestones are frequently used to monitor progress, but there are limitations to their effectiveness. They usually show progress only on the critical path, and ignore non-critical activities. It is not uncommon for resources to be moved from non-critical activities to critical activities to ensure that milestones are met. This gives the impression that the project is on schedule when actually some activities are being neglected. The best way to measure progress is by using Earned Value Analysis. This records how much work in total should be performed each day across the whole project, and measures how much has been performed (based on progress information applied to tasks), thus showing progress for the project as a whole.
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