Milestones are the numerous occasions which might be very important for the complete undertaking. Undertaking managers use milestone chart templates to measure a undertaking’s progress.
Milestones additionally present the way you obtain undertaking objectives which have been set originally of the undertaking.
It is perhaps a easy and primary means of defining a milestone. Nevertheless, everybody within the undertaking group might not comprehend undertaking milestones the identical means. Therefore, chances are you’ll face difficulties managing the undertaking if the group members will not be in sync.
With out losing extra time, let’s dig deeper into the subject of undertaking milestones. Learn the article to be taught milestones, milestone charts, templates, advantages, and extra in an easy-to-understand language.
What Is a Milestone Chart?📈
Earlier than going into milestone charts, let’s perceive milestones first. Milestones operate as checkpoints to guage the undertaking progress because the undertaking rolls on to the ultimate goal. You should use undertaking milestones because the sign posts for necessary phases within the undertaking timeline. For instance:
- The beginning date and completion date of a undertaking.
- A pre-planned evaluate of the undertaking by the shopper, a 3rd celebration, or the stakeholders.
- Some extent within the undertaking the place you’ll want to focus on updating the finances with the buyers.
- Submitting a major deliverable like sending the prototype cellular📱 app to the shopper expertise group for person suggestions throughout the agile product growth course of.
Milestones are there, so you may clearly visualize vital components concerned in a undertaking. Additionally they simply showcase the place you might be on the product growth or undertaking lifecycle at any particular date and time.
Now, defining a milestone chart turns into simple. It’s a undertaking administration instrument to visualise the undertaking or product growth milestones. Normally, undertaking administration software program makes use of Gantt charts or different undertaking timeline buildings and places the milestones there.
The milestones on a undertaking timeline typically embody very important milestone particulars like begin date, due date, whom to report back to, and so forth. Much like Gantt charts, milestone charts additionally make the most of a number of primary symbols overlaid on a undertaking timeline or calendar. Such a construction offers info on the precise and deliberate milestone completion dates.
Milestone chart symbols might be a vertical white arrow for scheduled completion and an upright black arrow indicating precise completion. Additionally, a white diamond form denotes a beforehand scheduled completion that’s nonetheless dated sooner or later, and a black coloured diamond♦️ form signifies a beforehand scheduled completion for which the date has already handed.
Why Milestone Charts Are Important for Undertaking Managers
In case you are a undertaking supervisor or accountable for a product growth cycle, you can find milestone charts helpful for the next causes:
Deadline Monitoring
Splitting up a giant undertaking into parts of duties and milestones helps you create many deadlines as an alternative of 1. Thus, the undertaking group works appropriately to realize these targets as an alternative of ready for the final deadline.
Hold Vital Dates within the Highlight
Milestone chart templates enable you to plan your undertaking by factoring in upcoming lengthy holidays, board conferences, group coaching, and so forth.
Acknowledge Undertaking Bottlenecks
Product growth duties that contain process dependencies from exterior companions or distributors are possible to enter a bottleneck since your undertaking administration timeline doesn’t account for these.
That’s why undertaking managers use milestone charts to incorporate exterior elements like a vendor provide is required to ahead a process to the subsequent milestone. That’s how sensible undertaking managers hold their initiatives out of gridlock.
Make the most of Your Undertaking Group
Undertaking managers use milestone charts to separate a giant undertaking into small chunks. Then they analyze these milestones to find which abilities are essential. Accordingly, they will assign the milestones to the group based mostly on their abilities.
Transparency in Financing
Undertaking milestones are an indispensable element when reporting undertaking standing to buyers. It helps financing companions to visualise the place the cash goes and what’s the projected return. Therefore, you may persuade the financers and hold the money flowing.
Why Milestone Charts Are Higher Than Spreadsheets
The followings are a number of drawbacks of utilizing spreadsheets for undertaking milestones quite than a milestone chart instrument:
#1. Spreadsheets lack the automation wanted for tack updates. Therefore, you must undergo dozens of worksheets to know the present standing of initiatives and milestones. Then, you’ll want to manually write emails and comply with up with the useful resource accountable for the duty.
#2. Spreadsheet-based milestone charts don’t routinely notify the complete group once you obtain a milestone. It’s worthwhile to monitor all of the worksheets and search for the finished milestones.
#3. Most spreadsheet apps don’t provide integration with different undertaking administration, buyer relationship administration (CRM), time tracker, and video conferencing instruments. Therefore, to shortly current knowledge or undertaking statuses to stakeholders, you must undergo many preparations earlier than the assembly.
#4. Most spreadsheet apps don’t provide superior reporting capabilities besides numerical calculations, charts, graphs, and tables. Quite the opposite, a devoted undertaking administration utility with milestone charts gives specialised reporting options like burndown charts, velocity charts, cumulative move charts, burnup charts, and so forth.
Tips on how to Create a Milestone Chart
#1. Step one in direction of milestone chart creation is defining the undertaking objectives. Therefore, entry any undertaking administration instrument and create a undertaking timeline. Additionally, you will want to write down down undertaking objectives in process playing cards. Lastly, give an estimated begin date and finish date on your undertaking.
#2. The subsequent process is creating a listing of duties for the undertaking. Report the undertaking duties in chronological order. For instance, for an internet site product growth undertaking, you’ll want to register for a website and internet hosting supplier, after which you’ll begin engaged on the precise web site.
#3. You have to hyperlink undertaking duties to this point ranges or dates relying on the trouble wanted to finish these duties.
#4. Now, you’ll want to establish the milestones in your undertaking. To search out if a undertaking element qualifies to be a milestone, you’ll want to ask the next questions. If the reply is Sure to all of the questions, the undertaking aspect is a milestone:
- Is the element a major checkpoint that signifies undertaking development?
- Does the undertaking element have an effect on the deadline?
- Do the undertaking stakeholders have to evaluate the elements?
#5. It’s time to create a undertaking timeline within the undertaking administration utility by assembling objectives, duties, deliverables, phases, and milestones right into a logical order. Throughout timeline creation, additionally, you will establish process dependencies that might put the undertaking in a gridlock.
#6. Lastly, share the milestone chart with the undertaking group and stakeholders. You might also wish to activate notifications and emails to obtain undertaking updates.
Decide Milestones in Product Administration
Since most product growth processes comply with the agile framework, key dates are now not logical milestones. As a result of your merchandise are going out repeatedly and enhancements are additionally real-time.
Subsequently, in product administration, milestones needs to be particular objectives your group wants to realize when a growth cycle or dash ends. Listed here are some milestone examples for product administration:
- Reaching a key efficiency indicator (KPI) aim
- Including new functionalities to the product
- Launching a cellular app on a brand new app market
- Enabling the gross sales and advertising and marketing group
- Attending a convention or a tradeshow and selling the product
- Starting or finish of a fiscal quarter
Listed here are a number of the finest milestone chart templates for product managers.
SmartSheet
Attempt these Smartsheet templates to expertise milestone charts of various designs and kinds. The templates can be found as undertaking milestones, undertaking timelines with milestones, enterprise acquisition milestones, milestone roadmaps, and so forth.
In case you plan to handle initiatives or product developments with these templates, you’ll want to manually monitor the statuses. The reason being that these templates are based mostly on Microsoft Phrase, Excel, and PowerPoint codecs. Some are additionally accessible in PDF information for easy emailing of undertaking milestone studies.
You can begin with the fundamental milestone template. It features a static chart for milestones and a visible timeline. The static desk accommodates headers like milestone assignee, feedback, standing, and so forth.
Lucidspark
The Lucidspark milestone chart means that you can visualize key undertaking objectives and milestones readily. The chart is fairly easy, and you may set up your undertaking milestones shortly by getting into the main points. You would not have to speculate a lot time in enhancing the template.
By design, it’s a 3 by 4 matrix of square-shaped playing cards. From the left to proper, the columns symbolize Milestone 1, Milestone 2, Milestone 3, and the Remaining Purpose. The highest to backside rows symbolize Deliverables, Steps, and Dates.
You may copy-paste the prevailing textual content containers for Title and Description to accommodate the duties or deliverables that symbolize undertaking milestones. Moreover, you need to use the Dragline from the form function to attach the milestones with duties, phases, dependencies, and so forth.
Miro
In case you and your group collaborate on a giant undertaking with many duties, deadlines, and deliverables, you need to use the easy milestone chart instance from Miro.
The ready-made milestone chart is appropriate for monitoring a number of initiatives and duties utilizing static charts and visible timelines. The design makes it simpler so that you can plan necessary occasions scheduled to happen at particular time intervals throughout the undertaking lifecycle.
The milestone chart instance additionally enables you to collaborate in real-time along with your product growth group by means of hyperlink sharing. Moreover, you may convert the board to Presentation mode if you’ll want to current milestone achievements to the undertaking stakeholders.
Gantt Chart Maker
ProjectManager is a number one PM instrument that allows you to create Gantt charts with undertaking milestones. These charts can be found on-line so to arrange computerized notifications, reporting, undertaking progress analysis, and lots of extra.
The instrument enables you to visualize milestones simply on the listing, board, and calendar view of a undertaking. The milestones are designed in a fashion to go properly with the Gantt chart. All of the milestones are designated through diamond symbols on the undertaking timeline.
You may add and customise milestones from the Gantt chart ribbon menu. When you go to the Gantt ribbon, you will note a diamond image. Click on on that so as to add a brand new milestone or edit an current one.
Creately
Creately is one more common platform for skilled templates and diagrams. You may go to the web site to entry some cool milestone chart templates that product growth groups and stakeholders simply perceive.
In case you design the milestone chart accurately utilizing Gantt charts and undertaking timelines, you need to use the chart as a centralized place for undertaking administration. Creately enables you to collaborate stay with exterior and inner assets. Moreover, you may arrange sensible notifications to know every time somebody makes modifications to the milestone board.
Workplace Timeline
Workplace Timeline can be a preferred vacation spot for add-ins that work on-line or offline along with your favourite Microsoft Workplace purposes like PowerPoint and Excel. Although most of those timeline instruments are paid, you may obtain a free trial model to visualise your milestones. In case you discover the template helpful, you should purchase a business license from Workplace Timeline.
Its milestone chart accommodates a undertaking timeline and primary symbols like diamonds, circles, and squares to indicate the milestones. The undertaking timeline is actually a horizontal timescale on which milestones present up. You may add milestone knowledge, like begin date, description, assets, and finish date.
FAQ
Gantt charts are completely different undertaking administration instruments than milestone charts. Gantt charts will let you know which actions you’ll want to full to complete a undertaking.
Quite the opposite, a milestone chart tells you the top dates by which you’ll want to ship specific undertaking deliverables or current a report.
Remaining Phrases
Milestones make a giant distinction for any undertaking in quite a lot of methods. In case you are a undertaking supervisor and haven’t set undertaking milestones, it’s the proper time to try this. Quite the opposite, in case you are a undertaking group member and wish to set milestones for an easy navigation of the undertaking or product growth processes, discuss to the undertaking lead now.
To this point, you’ve got gone by means of the straightforward fundamentals of milestones, milestone charts, and their benefits. You might have additionally discovered create one for any undertaking or product growth. Moreover, we’ve got launched you to some finest milestone chart templates that you would be able to begin utilizing proper now with out losing time creating one from scratch.
You might also wish to learn the Undertaking Roadmap: Information and Free Templates article for higher undertaking reporting to stakeholders.