Milestones and Measures

  ProjectsAtWork  

The right milestone measures can deliver important information about the performance of the team.

This is the second article in the six-part Project Vital Signs series. Search the author's name to read other articles in the series.

A milestone is a point of considerable progress in the project. We define the completion of each deliverable, as well as start and/or end of selected tasks, as milestones. On average, for each team member on the project (working full- or part-time), a milestone should appear every 10 days. Milestones are used to monitor the speed and direction of the project team as it travels towards its goal of timely completion. For example, in the business process of purchasing a computer, the milestones are:

·        Purchase order approved

·        Computer ordered from the vendor

·        Computer delivered

·        Computer installed

·        Software installed/upgraded

The milestone-hit rate indicates the number of milestones the team was planning to hit and the number of milestones they actually hit during a specific reporting period. We recommend two separate monitoring cycles:

1) To-date performance: the total number of milestones planned to be hit vs. the total number of milestones actually hit; and

2) A shorter monitoring cycle – every two weeks: the total number of milestones planned to be hit vs. the total number of …

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