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Milestones? Resist Milestones

The use of Milestones is common on many project domains. Here is the defense business the primary paradigm is the Integrated Master Plan (IMP). The IMP is the "strategy" for the successful completion of the program or project.

Here's the top level (the IMP) of how we talk about "Increasing Maturity" of the deliverables for our programs.

Here's the Problem with Milestones

The notion of a milestone is simple. It's a rock on the side of the road, that when you pass it you know how far you are from some destination, or how far you are from a destination your are seeking.

The primary problem with "milestones," is they are easily passed. They represent a a zero duration activity with a name on it in the schedule.

No real information. The key to the Integrated Master Plan, is that the Program Event has units of measure of "done."

The Signification Accomplishments that must be performed before we are ready to assess the maturity of the deliverable represented by the Program Event.

The Accomplishment Criteria, that describes the "exit criteria" for the work delivered through the Work Packages in the Integrated Master Schedule (IMS).

Here's the benefits of this approach:

• We can speak about done in units of measure that represent the increasing maturity of the deliverables. This means that progress is always measures in terms of Physical Percent Compete. Not the passage of time and the consumption of resources.
• The entry and exit criteria for the Program Event are explicitly defined in the Integrated Master Schedule (IMS).

In the End Don't Use Milestones, Use Measures of Physical Progress to Plan

This is the critical success factor that Milestones cannot address. Milestone describe the arrival at a point in the road. But there is not connected description of how we can recognize that we're making progress along the way the "there."

The Integrated Master Plan paradigm defines the incremental increases in maturity on the way to assessing the planned maturity at the Program Event.

What happens is the project's work activities are anchored on the left of the milestone, with no description of how progress toward the milestone - other than the passage of time and consumption of resources.

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