Project milestones

What are project milestones, and why are they so important? Establishing a project schedule with milestones (key steps/goals to achieve) is the backbone of every project. Describing each part of the plan is plain sailing. The trick is to bring each completion and achieve the intended results. When we manage to complete a given stage successfully – we reach a milestone of the project. In today’s article, we would like to discuss and provide some tips and tricks on how to establish and carry out project milestones, so take a minute and have a read!

Project milestones – table of contents:

1. Project milestones – brief intro
2. Project milestones in practice
3. Milestones or worth it

Project milestones – brief intro

As far as the definition itself is concerned, a milestone is – one could say the -a single event in the schedule. Each time, it refers to a key step that makes up the whole endeavor, e.g.

• signing a contract,
• receiving a report,
• an important meeting,
• approval of a project at the patent office

We can easily enumerate plenty of similar examples, but the point is to illustrate the definition of a milestone concerning management methods.

Project milestones in practice

Each milestone must mark the completion of a particular part of work and the beginning of the next. Let’s take a specific example, a project entitled. “Writing an undergraduate thesis.”

Stage 1: Selecting a topic, having it approved by the supervisor:

• choosing from available topics or choosing your own topic that fits your specialization,
• consultation with the thesis advisor and approval to proceed with further work

Stage 2: Literature of the subject and the object

• completing the bibliography containing all the necessary literature of the subject and the object,
• receiving permission from the dissertation supervisor to use the research aids of your choice

Stage 3: Writing the thesis according to the guidelines

• formal issues (abstract, table of contents, introduction)
• substantive part (development, possible illustrations, charts and graphics)
• conclusion in the form of a summary of previously gathered conclusions and theses

Stage 4: Promoter’s amendments

• applying possible promoter’s amendments after their suggestion,
• acceptance of the entire work

Stage 5: Reviews

• promoter’s review,
• reviewer’s review

Stage 6: Verification

• placing the dissertation in the anti-plagiarism system,
• making corrections if necessary (in case of failure)

Stage 7: Finished thesis

• printout with watermarks and code,
• binding following the university guidelines,
• bringing the finished, physical copy to the secretary’s office

The thought process structured in this way illustrates well the progression of achieving each milestone.

Milestones or worth it

Milestones are certainly one of the most useful project management techniques. They stand out from all the others mainly because they are schematic, and sticking to their assumptions has a beneficial effect on developing organizational skills like meticulousness, planning and a realistic professional approach to work, to name a few.

Read: Project Planning – 5 Things You Need to Know Before a Project Starts

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