On the Importance of Milestones

In the world of project management, some projects can seem daunting or outright impossible. Take the Apollo program, for instance, and imagine what was going through the minds of those thousands of engineers at NASA when they got the directive that they had to put a man on the moon and safely get him back to Earth. Where would they start? How would they know if they were on track?

Like all successful complex projects, they relied on proper project management, and one of the most important aspects of a project is the use of milestones. Simply put, milestones are goals for different phases of your project, and they’re very specific in their completion dates, assigned parties, and expected results. So let’s dive into why milestones are important to properly run your projects.

They help to monitor deadlines

Clearly marking milestones on your Gantt chart during the planning phase of a project will help project managers to stay on top of all associated deadlines. They’re clearly visible to all and all parties know what needs to be accomplished as the date approaches.

Identify potential bottlenecks

Many projects rely on work produced by external teams or partners. If these external factors aren’t being tracked, delays become likely and the progress of the project can slow down drastically or even stop altogether. By identifying these possible bottlenecks, measures can be taken to deal with them b... continue reading on our blog.