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Difference between milestone and goals

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kennias chinyanga South Africa
milestone and goals/objectives to me looks like the same, can someone help me how it differs
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Sergio Luis Conte Helping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based Organizations Buenos Aires, Argentina
Goal is something we desire to achieve. Milestone is a significant event that help to understand how far we are for a goal (for example) or any other thing.
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Kiron Bondale Retired | Mentor| Retired Welland, Ontario, Canada
Kennias -

To give you an example aligned with Sergio's explanation, let's say we wanted to establish a colony on Mars.

Key milestones might include:

1. Building a rocket capable of getting to Mars and back quickly.
2. Creating a vehicle which could navigate the Mars surface.
3. Building a habitable structure on Mars.
4. Creating a sustainable energy, water and food plant.

Each involves a number of integrated activities resulting in a major accomplishment which in turn gets us closer and closer to achieving our goal.

Kiron
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1 reply by Baskar Narasimhan
Dec 07, 2021 2:32 AM
Baskar Narasimhan
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Our Goal is - Establish a colony on Mars.
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Keith Novak Tukwila, Wa, United States
A milestone is a reference point for judging your distance to the goal. Think of a football/soccer pitch. The goal is the net at the end of the field. The halfway line marking is like a milestone. Crossing the line shows you are moving the ball towards the goal but you only score points if the ball crosses the goal line.
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Thomas Walenta Global Project Economy Expert Hackenheim, Germany
If your goal is to reach Rome, there are many roads to get there. Each of them is an option for a project approach (the shortest, the fastest, the one with least cost), and they also depend on the season as you have to cross the Alps which have lots of roads blocked by snow in winter.

Once you have chosen a road, you may want to measure your progress and set your milestones along this road, or just use the ones put there by the Romans 2000 years ago. They might tell you how far it still is to reach Rome and if you document it, what you have achieved so far.

Thomas
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Peter Rapin Subject Matter Expect; Project Delivery| Independent Consultant Ontario, Canada
Sometimes there are intermediate objectives or deliverables.
Are these 'sub-goals' or 'milestones'.

I come from the construction industry, the example is a multi-million dollar building (could be bridge) restoration project. In order to access the main structure you need to prepare facilities and relocate the occupants/equipment (traffic). Is the relocation a goal/sub-goal or milestone? The alternative would be to split up into two projects but the intent is to manage it as one.

I tend to think of it as a milestone but being a definable deliverable it feels like a goal. Any thoughts?
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Syed Shah Dammam, 04, Saudi Arabia
Milestone is a bench mark for achieving the specific goal.
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1 reply by Peter Rapin
Dec 06, 2021 10:13 PM
Peter Rapin
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In my example Is the temporary relocation a goal or a milestone?
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Peter Rapin Subject Matter Expect; Project Delivery| Independent Consultant Ontario, Canada
Dec 06, 2021 7:31 PM
Replying to Syed Shah
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Milestone is a bench mark for achieving the specific goal.
In my example Is the temporary relocation a goal or a milestone?
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Baskar Narasimhan Doha, Qatar, Qatar
Dec 06, 2021 9:04 AM
Replying to Kiron Bondale
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Kennias -

To give you an example aligned with Sergio's explanation, let's say we wanted to establish a colony on Mars.

Key milestones might include:

1. Building a rocket capable of getting to Mars and back quickly.
2. Creating a vehicle which could navigate the Mars surface.
3. Building a habitable structure on Mars.
4. Creating a sustainable energy, water and food plant.

Each involves a number of integrated activities resulting in a major accomplishment which in turn gets us closer and closer to achieving our goal.

Kiron
Our Goal is - Establish a colony on Mars.
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Yuri Magalhães Sr Project Manager| Invera Software Inc Montreal, Canada
The definition and difference have already been established. I'd just like to point that in some projects I've delivered, mostly in those with larger teams, sometimes I've seen what as a project milestone being faced as a team goal.

These were the cases where a team jumped aboard for a specific project phase, task or delivery.

Perhaps it could be seen in a horizon of permanent or not.

For a team building the turbo of a engine, the turbo itself is a goal, but for the entire engine, it's one of the milestones.

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