DTU ProjectLab - User contributions [en-gb]

Talk:The best milestone plan is simple but with depths!

2015-09-29T17:45:40Z

S113665: /* Reviewer 1: S141543 */

Anna: I like the topic a lot, it gives great opportunity for discussing the advantages and limitations of this tool and also give pointers on how this should be used in the most efficient way!

=Reviewer 1: S141543=

* It is noted at the top of the wiki page that the article is a work in progress at the moment
* What has been written at this moment is really good
* The abstract sums it up nicely
* The definition in “big idea” explains the idea behind the method well
* The article needs references
* It might be a good idea to add some figures for easy understanding
* It would be nice to add conclusions as well
* Definitely going in the right direction, keep up the good work!

***Thank you for the constructive comments!

Reviewer 2: Lea
*Your article is well written. You have a good and fluent writing style. Sentences are coherent and the reader can easily follow through the paragraphs.
*From the structure you are following the method-article. I would suggest to add more sub-heading on order for the reader to be able to follow the theme or your article more.
* Grammar and sentence-structure are fine.
* You have not used any figures but some visualization would make the topic more readable.
*The topic is interesting and applies to the course. As mentioned above, I would recommend to add more subheadings to facilitate reading.
*As you mentioned, you are not done with the article yet. Right now the word count is far below 3000. More structure and headings might help you to identify spots where more information is needed.
*There are no sources in the text. In my opinion you should concentrate on adding more information to your article by revising relevant articles and books which will also give you the opportunity to add information to the annotated bibliography.
*You haven’t added any links but mentioned for example Work Breakdown Structure. An article was formulated this year which you could link to your text. [[Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)]]
*Concerning Plagiarism you have to be sure to add sources to the text.

*** Thank you very much for your very nice and constructive comments! Hope you like the final version!

Reviewer 3: s141569

The topic of the article seems to be really interesting for reading.

I would suggest to the author to add some figures for a better explanation and to like their article with the Gantt chart articles because the Gantt chart nowadays uses the milestones. It is quite hard to review the article because it is under construction, however I will try to give my best review until now.

*The article is free of errors except some spelling which are obvious that are not so significant
*Until now it is written in a very well way and it is very understandable
*There are no figures yes, but I hope some will be added
*The article is properly formatted according to the wiki-article type
*I think that the final version is going to be really interesting for practitioners
*The article is not so related to a project, program or portfolio management topic but it can be as a sub-category of it
*The length is almost half of what we are asked to write, but it is still in modification mode
*There is a logical flow throughout the article
*The starting summary seems to be appropriate for the article
*There are no sources or references yet but probably there are going to be some to support the arguments
*There no straight link with other apppm wiki articles yet

*** Thank you for the help, I have corrected many of the points you made and looked through it all again!

The best milestone plan is simple but with depths!

2015-09-28T20:38:37Z

S113665:

==Abstract==
The planning part of a project is essential to succeed. The milestone plan is one of the most used planning tools, but also one of the hardest to master! It may seem simple, but many project managers tend to ‘overuse’ milestones as a motivation tool, and therefore adding too many milestones, and labeling every minor task completion as a milestone. This ‘overuse’ often has a negative effect on the team members’ motivation, as it’ll cause loss of luster and distinctiveness, not to mention the time consumption!
That is just one of many mistakes and issues related to milestone planning.

This article will explore and explain the optimal usage of the tool. The Milestone Plan will, if done correctly, act as an enormous motivation tool along with making sure the project is on track and on the way to success.

The following article will look into the correct way of defining a milestone and how to probably use the milestones to create a usable plan and get the golden overview!
==Article==
===Big Idea===
A milestone is in its basic form a stone that tells you that you’re one mile down the road. They provide reference points, and are used to reassure travellers that they’re on track, and to indicate distance travelled or distance remaining.

In a project, a milestone defines a completion of something. The only requirement is that the milestone is tied to a quantitative measurement, an internal or external deliverable, or a significant turning point or transition in the project. It is basically an important event marked on a timeline that is recognized when successfully reached.
[[File:milestonesimple.png|right|200px|Figure 1: Basic Milestone Plan with start and end date]]
The Milestone Plan serves as an essential guideline for every project, from big to small. It has a variety of purposes as it shows how the intermediate products, or deliverables, build towards the final output and therefore gives an important overview. This is much needed, as this overview is required to keep the project under control and to identify upcoming bottlenecks and therefore giving the possibility of taking preventive actions well ahead of the critical point.
The Milestone Plan is furthermore used as motivation tool. A goal and a vision gets the team together going towards the same goal, on the same path, a plan keeps the team on that path, and the Milestone Plan combines these two and adds continuous motivation
It is important to point out that the milestone plan is not to be mistaken for a replacement for any other tools, it is however a strong addition to any project and should never be left out. It can even take care of the entire planning spectrum of a project if done right; keep reading and you’ll soon know why and how!
===Application===
The milestone plan can be made when the project goal and deliverable have been settled and confirmed. It is often even taken in consideration in the fuzzy front end of a project, when negotiations, according to the bid and contract, are made with the customer as the deadlines is coming to an agreement and the plan is being visualized.
[[File:milestone_top_level.gif|left|500px|Figure 2: Top level Milestone Plan, with the total overview and possibility to go in depths to another more detailed level.]]
====Setting the milestones====
Placing milestones on the timeline is a difficult task. It is important to have an even plan with the exact amount of time and space between each milestone. This will promote motivation through sub-goals, by giving the team something to strive for. It is important that the milestones are not too far apart as the team members will forget about it, but it is equally important that they’re not too close as you’ll loose interest and not get the feeling of achieving something as too many minor events are celebrated.
For example, if you’re constructing a car, you don’t need to celebrate the delivery of a bolt for the wheel. Yet it would be a nice thing to celebrate when the wheels are on the car!
A good rule is to have 10% of the total project time duration between each milestone. It should, however, never exceed a 2-week interval to have the continuous motivation.

It is therefore important to define prober milestones for your specific project.
====Define a milestone====
Before you create the timeline with your events you need to determine what kind of milestones you want to “celebrate” and what kind of milestones that makes sense for your project.

Milestones can be grouped under several classifications and each defines an event in its own kind.

▪ Phase transitions occur when the project goes from one phase to another. For example if a product goes from designing to construction a prototype (from software to hardware). You can basically divide phase transitions into six stages: information gathering, or marketing research, planning, design, development, testing, and delivery. Each transition from one stage to another is a viable milestone!

• Rates of total completion are commonly used milestones when the project involves repetition without sequential advancement to the next stage. A good example is a training exercise in which milestones are set for the percentage of employees fully trained or certified, e.g., 25, 50, 75, and 100 percent. This gives the benefits of giving a clearer understanding of the process of the project and understandable by all stakeholders regarding their involvement.

• Performance recognition milestones are achievements that are not directly connected to the advancement of the project, but recognize the quality of the work performed. For example, in the construction of a plant, a typical milestone would be to recognize periodically that employees have logged in a certain number of work hours without a single safety incident.

• Deliverables represent tangible evidence of progress towards the project’s goals. It is therefore a commonly used milestone, as it is also easy to determine.

• Task completion has its resembles with deliverables but define a completion of a specific task. A task milestone could be the completion of the roof on a building, and another to finish the plumbing and so on. This is easy applicable and gives a great overview of the project, not as easy interpreted as the ‘rates of completion’ milestone though, but provides more opportunities regarding the degree of details. It is of great understanding used internal in a project.

A perfect plan for motivation contains some of everything!

You will also need to keep in mind, that milestones needs to be somehow challenging and carry a degree of risk for failure. This is done to inspire your team members to stay motivated and feel a greater sense of accomplishment.
====Creating the plan====
Now that the preferable milestones have been set on the start-to-finish-timeline, you will need to determine the degree of details for each milestone shown on the plan. This is however the part that is hard to master and very time-consuming. It is important to get the right level of details for the user, but not too much as the plan will loose its ability to provide the golden overview.
The overlook of the milestone plan needs the exact amount of information valid to that specific user/reader.
The best Milestone Plan can fit onto a single page!
[[File:Gantt2.jpg|700px|right|Figure 3: Milestone Plan made in cooperation with the Gantt-chart method.]]

Large and complex projects often need more than one Milestone Plan, as a single plan might not satisfy all the planning needs on the strategic level. In this case “Subsidiary milestone plans” are used. Each Milestone on the master plan goes into a Milestone Plan of its own in a deeper level.
For example there is a master Milestone Plan for a car itself, with milestones such as having the chassis made, installing the engine and so on. When a stakeholder is looking on the master plan to see when the wheels are getting fitted, they don’t care about the subsidiary milestone of the tire getting fitted to the rim. This is however a milestone on the next level, the deeper version only containing milestones for the wheel itself.
This way of doing Milestone Plans is made by incorporating the WBS (Work-Breakdown-Structure)– with each level and string acting as a subsidiary Milestone Plan.
====Basic how-to====
Here’s a step-by-step how-to guide of the basics regarding a Milestone Plan.

# Determine start and end date and set up the timeline.
# Define the audience and balance the “plan-level” accordingly.
# Define milestones worth “celebrating”.
## Keep in mind to choose milestones that complements the recommended time interval and the audience.
# Insert the chosen milestones in the timeline and put in relevant details for each milestone.
# Mind the critical path!
## Add buffers if needed to counteract for unforeseen risks and time delays.
# Supplement the milestones with relevant data.
Now all you need to do is to take a step back and enjoy your newfound golden overview!
===Limitations===
Looking at bigger projects, for example delivery-projects as constructions of all sorts, buildings, ships, etc..., it does, of course, has to be a unique production as it would otherwise just be a factory task. It might seem “simple” to create the Milestone Plan on these conditions, as you have the goals set, and a contract defined. A contract often contains specific dates where deliverables needs to be delivered and a logic order for when tasks need to be done. It is here you’ll see the biggest advantages of the Milestone Plan but also the biggest pitfalls. You will have an overload of information and data and possible milestones to keep track of from the, often, comprehensive, contract and agreements. Of course that is why a Milestone Plan is needed, but to create that plan out of all the data, you need to master the critical path and proper risk management as well as choosing the suitable milestones and appropriate timeline. It is important that the plan can adapt to unforeseen events, without having to redo the entire thing.

Milestones are used to monitor a progress, but there are drawbacks and limitations to their effectiveness. Milestones focus primarily on the progress of the critical path, and can therefore neglect non-critical activities. Resources are therefore focused on the critical activities and even moved from non-critical activities to critical ones to ensure that milestones are met. This can provide a false impression that a project is on schedule even though some activities are being ignored.

A milestone plan is easy to practice but hard to master!

===Annotated bibliography===
• http://www.brighthubpm.com/project-planning/68427-successful-project-milestone-planning/
o Brighthubpm.com has some well-explained articles of basic milestone planning along with many other interesting articles regarding project management!

• http://www.brighthubpm.com/project-planning/68429-project-planning-typical-milestones/
o Another great, basic, article from Brighthubpm.com that gives examples of typical milestones.

• http://www.brighthubpm.com/templates-forms/128506-milestone-templates-for-excel-/?cid=parsely_rec
o Yet another article from Bighthubpm.com. This one is with and about templates for milestone planning! Gives some great and free tools for milestone planning.

• “Milestone Planning” Prepared by: Jörg Aldinger, IBIS 8 Matr. 152028 at the University of Applied Sciences, Heilbronn
o In opposition of Bighthubpm.com, this document explains much ore deeply how a milestone plan is used to its fullest!

====Additional links to other wiki-articles with additional and useful information:====
=====WBS=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Work_Breakdown_Structure_(WBS)

=====Gantt=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/The_Gantt_chart_and_the_usage_nowadays

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Gantt_Charts_as_a_Tool_for_Project_Management

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/The_Gantt_Chart

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Gantt_Chart

=====Critical path=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Critical_chain_project_management_(CCPM)

=====Risk management=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Project_Risk_Management_and_Project_Risk_Management_Processes

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Management_of_risk

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Managing_Uncertainty_and_Risk_on_the_Project

The best milestone plan is simple but with depths!

2015-09-28T19:16:16Z

S113665:

''Wiki Article:''
''The best milestone plan is simple but with depths''
==Abstract==
The planning part of a project is essential to succeed. The milestone plan is one of the most used planning tools, but also one of the hardest to master! It may seem simple, but many project managers tend to ‘overuse’ milestones as a motivation tool, and therefore adding too many milestones, and labeling every minor task completion as a milestone. This ‘overuse’ often has a negative effect on the team members’ motivation, as it’ll cause loss of luster and distinctiveness, not to mention the time consumption!
That is just one of many mistakes and issues related to milestone planning.

This article will explore and explain the optimal usage of the tool. If done correctly, will the milestone plan act as an enormous motivation tool along with making sure the project is on track and on the way to success.
==Article==
===Big Idea===
A milestone is in its basic form a stone that tells you that you’re one mile down the road. They provide reference points, and are used to reassure travellers that they’re on track and to indicate distance travelled or distance remaining.

In a project a milestone define a completion of something. The only requirement is that the milestone is tied to a quantitative measurement, an internal or external deliverable, or a significant turning point or transition in the project. It is basically an important event marked on a timeline that are recognized when successfully reached.
[[File:milestonesimple.png|right|200px|Figure 1: Basic Milestone Plan with start and end date]]
The Milestone Plan serves as an essential guideline for every project, from big to small. It has a variety of purposes as it shows, how the intermediate products, or deliverables, build towards the final output and therefore gives an important overview. This is much needed, as this overview is required to keep the project under control and to identify upcoming bottlenecks and therefore giving the possibility of taking preventive actions well ahead of the critical point.
The Milestone Plan is furthermore used as motivation tool. A goal and a vision gets the team together going towards the same goal, on the same path, a plan keeps the team on that path, and the Milestone Plan combines these two and adds continuous motivation
It is important to point out that the milestone plan is not to be mistaken for a replacement for any other tools, it is however a strong addition to any project and should never be left out. It can even take care of the entire planning spectrum of a project if done right; keep reading and you’ll soon know why and how!
===Application===
The milestone plan can be made when the project goal and deliverable has been settled and confirmed. It is often even taken in consideration in the fuzzy front end of a project, when negotiations, according to the bid and contract, are made with the customer as the deadlines is coming to an agreement and the plan is being visualized.
[[File:milestone_top_level.gif|left|500px|Figure 2: Top level Milestone Plan, with the total overview and possibility to go in depths to another more detailed level.]]
====Setting the milestones====
Placing milestones on the timeline is a difficult task. It is important to have an even plan with the exact amount of time and space between each milestone. This will promote motivation through sub-goals, by giving the team something to strive for. It is important that the milestones are not too far apart as the team members will forget about it, but it is equally important that they’re not too close as you’ll loose interest and not get the feeling of achieving something as too many minor events are celebrated.
For example, if you’re constructing a car, you don’t need to celebrate the delivery of a bolt for the wheel. Yet it would be a nice thing to celebrate when the wheels are on the car!
A good rule is to have 10% of the total project time duration between each milestone. It should, however, never exceed a 2-week interval to have the continuous motivation.

It is therefore important to define prober milestones for your specific project.
====Define a milestone====
Before you create the timeline with your events you need to determine what kind of milestones you want to “celebrate” and what kind of milestones that makes sense for your project.

Milestones can be grouped under several classifications and each defines an event in its own kind.

▪ Phase transitions occur when the project goes from one phase to another. For example if a product goes from designing to construction a prototype (from software to hardware). You can basically divide phase transitions into six stages: information gathering, or marketing research, planning, design, development, testing, and delivery. Each transition from one stage to another is a viable milestone!

• Rates of total completion are commonly used milestones when the project involves repetition without sequential advancement to the next stage. A good example is a training exercise in which milestones are set for the percentage of employees fully trained or certified, e.g., 25, 50, 75, and 100 percent. This gives the benefits of giving a clearer understanding of the process of the project and understandable by all stakeholders regarding their involvement.

• Performance recognition milestones are achievements that are not directly connected to the advancement of the project, but recognize the quality of the work performed. For example, in the construction of a plant, a typical milestone would be to recognize periodically that employees have logged in a certain number of work hours without a single safety incident.

• Deliverables represents tangible evidence of progress towards the project’s goals. It is therefore a commonly used milestone, as it is also easy to determine. It is by far the most popular choice for a milestone because it represents tangible evidence of progress towards the project's goals.

• Task completion has its resembles with deliverables but define a completion of a specific task. A task milestone could be the completion of the roof on a building, and another to finish the plumbing and so on. This is easy applicable and gives a great overview of the project, not as easy interpreted as the ‘rates of completion’ milestone though, but provides more opportunities regarding the degree of details. It is of great understanding used internal in a project.

A perfect plan for motivation contains some of everything!

You will also need to keep in mind, that milestones needs to be somehow challenging and carry a degree of risk for failure. This is done to inspire your team members to stay motivated and feel a greater sense of accomplishment.
====Creating the plan====
Now that the preferable milestones have been set on the start-to-finish-timeline, you will need to determine the degree of details for each milestone shown on the plan. This is however the part that is hard to master and very time-consuming. It is important to get the right level of details for the user, but not too much as the plan will loose its ability to provide the golden overview.
The overlook of the milestone plan needs the exact amount of information valid to that specific user/reader.
The best Milestone Plan can fit onto a single page!
[[File:Gantt2.jpg|700px|right|Figure 3: Milestone Plan made in cooperation with the Gantt-chart method.]]

Large and complex projects often needs more than one Milestone Plan, as a single plan might not satisfy all the planning needs on the strategic level. In this case “Subsidiary milestone plans” are used. Each Milestone on the master plan goes into a Milestone Plan of its own in a deeper level.
For example there is a master Milestone Plan for a car itself, with milestones such as having the chassis made, installing the engine and so on. When a stakeholder is looking on the master plan to see when the wheels are getting fitted, they don’t care about the subsidiary milestone of the tire getting fitted to the rim. This is however a milestone on the next level, the deeper version only containing milestones for the wheel itself.
This way of doing Milestone Plans is made by incorporating the WBS (Work-Breakdown-Structure)– with each level and string acting as a subsidiary milestone plan.
====Basic how-to====
Here’s a step-by-step how-to guide of the basics regarding a Milestone Plan.

# Determine start and end date and set up the timeline.
# Define the audience and balance the “plan-level” accordingly.
# Define milestones worth “celebrating”.
## Keep in mind to choose milestones that complements the recommended time interval and the audience.
# Insert the chosen milestones to the timeline and put in relevant details for each milestone.
# Mind the critical path!
### Add buffers if needed to counteract for unforeseen risks and time delays.
# Supplement the milestones with relevant data.
Now all you need to do is to take a step back and enjoy your newfound golden overview!
===Limitations===
Looking at bigger projects, for example delivery-projects as constructions of all sorts, buildings, ships, it does, of course, has to be a unique production as it would otherwise just be a factory task. It might seem “simple” to create the Milestone plan in these conditions, as you have the goals set, and a contract defined. A contract often contains specific dates where deliverables needs to be delivered and a logic order for when tasks needs to be done. It is here you’ll see the biggest advantages of the Milestone Plan but also the biggest pitfalls. You will have an overload of information and data and possible milestones to keep track of, and of course that is why a Milestone Plan is needed, but to create that plan out of all the data, you need to master the critical path and proper risk management as well as choosing the suitable milestones and appropriate timeline. It is important that the plan can adapt to unforeseen events, without having to redo the entire thing.

Milestones are used to monitor a progress, but there are drawbacks and limitations to their effectiveness. Milestones focus primarily on the progress of the critical path, and can therefore neglect non-critical activities. Resources are therefore focused on the critical activities and even moved from non-critical activities to critical ones to ensure that milestones are met. This can provide a false impression that a project is on schedule even though some activities are being ignored.

===Annotated bibliography===
• http://www.brighthubpm.com/project-planning/68427-successful-project-milestone-planning/
o Brighthubpm.com has some well-explained articles of basic milestone planning along with many other interesting articles regarding project management!

• http://www.brighthubpm.com/project-planning/68429-project-planning-typical-milestones/
o Another great, basic, article from Brighthubpm.com that gives examples of typical milestones.

• http://www.brighthubpm.com/templates-forms/128506-milestone-templates-for-excel-/?cid=parsely_rec
o Yet another article from Bighthubpm.com. This one is with and about templates for milestone planning! Gives some great and free tools for milestone planning.

• “Milestone Planning” Prepared by: Jörg Aldinger, IBIS 8 Matr. 152028 at the University of Applied Sciences, Heilbronn
o In opposition of Bighthubpm.com, this document explains much ore deeply how a milestone plan is used to its fullest!

====Additional links to other wiki-articles with additional and useful information:====
=====WBS=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Work_Breakdown_Structure_(WBS)

=====Gantt=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/The_Gantt_chart_and_the_usage_nowadays

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Gantt_Charts_as_a_Tool_for_Project_Management

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/The_Gantt_Chart

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Gantt_Chart

=====Critical path=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Critical_chain_project_management_(CCPM)

=====Risk management=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Project_Risk_Management_and_Project_Risk_Management_Processes

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Management_of_risk

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Managing_Uncertainty_and_Risk_on_the_Project

The best milestone plan is simple but with depths!

2015-09-28T19:14:49Z

S113665:

''Wiki Article:''
''The best milestone plan is simple but with depths''
==Abstract==
The planning part of a project is essential to succeed. The milestone plan is one of the most used planning tools, but also one of the hardest to master! It may seem simple, but many project managers tend to ‘overuse’ milestones as a motivation tool, and therefore adding too many milestones, and labeling every minor task completion as a milestone. This ‘overuse’ often has a negative effect on the team members’ motivation, as it’ll cause loss of luster and distinctiveness, not to mention the time consumption!
That is just one of many mistakes and issues related to milestone planning.

This article will explore and explain the optimal usage of the tool. If done correctly, will the milestone plan act as an enormous motivation tool along with making sure the project is on track and on the way to success.
==Article==
===Big Idea===
A milestone is in its basic form a stone that tells you that you’re one mile down the road. They provide reference points, and are used to reassure travellers that they’re on track and to indicate distance travelled or distance remaining.

In a project a milestone define a completion of something. The only requirement is that the milestone is tied to a quantitative measurement, an internal or external deliverable, or a significant turning point or transition in the project. It is basically an important event marked on a timeline that are recognized when successfully reached.
[[File:milestonesimple.png|right|200px|Figure 1: Basic Milestone Plan with start and end date]]
The Milestone Plan serves as an essential guideline for every project, from big to small. It has a variety of purposes as it shows, how the intermediate products, or deliverables, build towards the final output and therefore gives an important overview. This is much needed, as this overview is required to keep the project under control and to identify upcoming bottlenecks and therefore giving the possibility of taking preventive actions well ahead of the critical point.
The Milestone Plan is furthermore used as motivation tool. A goal and a vision gets the team together going towards the same goal, on the same path, a plan keeps the team on that path, and the Milestone Plan combines these two and adds continuous motivation
It is important to point out that the milestone plan is not to be mistaken for a replacement for any other tools, it is however a strong addition to any project and should never be left out. It can even take care of the entire planning spectrum of a project if done right; keep reading and you’ll soon know why and how!
===Application===
The milestone plan can be made when the project goal and deliverable has been settled and confirmed. It is often even taken in consideration in the fuzzy front end of a project, when negotiations, according to the bid and contract, are made with the customer as the deadlines is coming to an agreement and the plan is being visualized.
[[File:milestone_top_level.gif|left|500px|Figure 2: Top level Milestone Plan, with the total overview and possibility to go in depths to another more detailed level.]]
====Setting the milestones====
Placing milestones on the timeline is a difficult task. It is important to have an even plan with the exact amount of time and space between each milestone. This will promote motivation through sub-goals, by giving the team something to strive for. It is important that the milestones are not too far apart as the team members will forget about it, but it is equally important that they’re not too close as you’ll loose interest and not get the feeling of achieving something as too many minor events are celebrated.
For example, if you’re constructing a car, you don’t need to celebrate the delivery of a bolt for the wheel. Yet it would be a nice thing to celebrate when the wheels are on the car!
A good rule is to have 10% of the total project time duration between each milestone. It should, however, never exceed a 2-week interval to have the continuous motivation.

It is therefore important to define prober milestones for your specific project.
====Define a milestone====
Before you create the timeline with your events you need to determine what kind of milestones you want to “celebrate” and what kind of milestones that makes sense for your project.

Milestones can be grouped under several classifications and each defines an event in its own kind.

▪ Phase transitions occur when the project goes from one phase to another. For example if a product goes from designing to construction a prototype (from software to hardware). You can basically divide phase transitions into six stages: information gathering, or marketing research, planning, design, development, testing, and delivery. Each transition from one stage to another is a viable milestone!

• Rates of total completion are commonly used milestones when the project involves repetition without sequential advancement to the next stage. A good example is a training exercise in which milestones are set for the percentage of employees fully trained or certified, e.g., 25, 50, 75, and 100 percent. This gives the benefits of giving a clearer understanding of the process of the project and understandable by all stakeholders regarding their involvement.

• Performance recognition milestones are achievements that are not directly connected to the advancement of the project, but recognize the quality of the work performed. For example, in the construction of a plant, a typical milestone would be to recognize periodically that employees have logged in a certain number of work hours without a single safety incident.

• Deliverables represents tangible evidence of progress towards the project’s goals. It is therefore a commonly used milestone, as it is also easy to determine. It is by far the most popular choice for a milestone because it represents tangible evidence of progress towards the project's goals.

• Task completion has its resembles with deliverables but define a completion of a specific task. A task milestone could be the completion of the roof on a building, and another to finish the plumbing and so on. This is easy applicable and gives a great overview of the project, not as easy interpreted as the ‘rates of completion’ milestone though, but provides more opportunities regarding the degree of details. It is of great understanding used internal in a project.

A perfect plan for motivation contains some of everything!

You will also need to keep in mind, that milestones needs to be somehow challenging and carry a degree of risk for failure. This is done to inspire your team members to stay motivated and feel a greater sense of accomplishment.
====Creating the plan====
Now that the preferable milestones have been set on the start-to-finish-timeline, you will need to determine the degree of details for each milestone shown on the plan. This is however the part that is hard to master and very time-consuming. It is important to get the right level of details for the user, but not too much as the plan will loose its ability to provide the golden overview.
The overlook of the milestone plan needs the exact amount of information valid to that specific user/reader.
The best Milestone Plan can fit onto a single page!
[[File:Gantt2.jpg|700px|right|Figure 3: Milestone Plan made in cooperation with the Gantt-chart method.]]

Large and complex projects often needs more than one Milestone Plan, as a single plan might not satisfy all the planning needs on the strategic level. In this case “Subsidiary milestone plans” are used. Each Milestone on the master plan goes into a Milestone Plan of its own in a deeper level.
For example there is a master Milestone Plan for a car itself, with milestones such as having the chassis made, installing the engine and so on. When a stakeholder is looking on the master plan to see when the wheels are getting fitted, they don’t care about the subsidiary milestone of the tire getting fitted to the rim. This is however a milestone on the next level, the deeper version only containing milestones for the wheel itself.
This way of doing Milestone Plans is made by incorporating the <ref>[''http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Work_Breakdown_Structure_(WBS)''] ''WBS (Work-Breakdown-Structure)'' </ref>WBS (Work-Breakdown-Structure)– with each level and string acting as a subsidiary milestone plan.
====Basic how-to====
Here’s a step-by-step how-to guide of the basics regarding a Milestone Plan.

# Determine start and end date and set up the timeline.
# Define the audience and balance the “plan-level” accordingly.
# Define milestones worth “celebrating”.
## Keep in mind to choose milestones that complements the recommended time interval and the audience.
# Insert the chosen milestones to the timeline and put in relevant details for each milestone.
# Mind the critical path!
### Add buffers if needed to counteract for unforeseen risks and time delays.
# Supplement the milestones with relevant data.
Now all you need to do is to take a step back and enjoy your newfound golden overview!
===Limitations===
Looking at bigger projects, for example delivery-projects as constructions of all sorts, buildings, ships, it does, of course, has to be a unique production as it would otherwise just be a factory task. It might seem “simple” to create the Milestone plan in these conditions, as you have the goals set, and a contract defined. A contract often contains specific dates where deliverables needs to be delivered and a logic order for when tasks needs to be done. It is here you’ll see the biggest advantages of the Milestone Plan but also the biggest pitfalls. You will have an overload of information and data and possible milestones to keep track of, and of course that is why a Milestone Plan is needed, but to create that plan out of all the data, you need to master the critical path and proper risk management as well as choosing the suitable milestones and appropriate timeline. It is important that the plan can adapt to unforeseen events, without having to redo the entire thing.

Milestones are used to monitor a progress, but there are drawbacks and limitations to their effectiveness. Milestones focus primarily on the progress of the critical path, and can therefore neglect non-critical activities. Resources are therefore focused on the critical activities and even moved from non-critical activities to critical ones to ensure that milestones are met. This can provide a false impression that a project is on schedule even though some activities are being ignored.

===Annotated bibliography===
• http://www.brighthubpm.com/project-planning/68427-successful-project-milestone-planning/
o Brighthubpm.com has some well-explained articles of basic milestone planning along with many other interesting articles regarding project management!

• http://www.brighthubpm.com/project-planning/68429-project-planning-typical-milestones/
o Another great, basic, article from Brighthubpm.com that gives examples of typical milestones.

• http://www.brighthubpm.com/templates-forms/128506-milestone-templates-for-excel-/?cid=parsely_rec
o Yet another article from Bighthubpm.com. This one is with and about templates for milestone planning! Gives some great and free tools for milestone planning.

• “Milestone Planning” Prepared by: Jörg Aldinger, IBIS 8 Matr. 152028 at the University of Applied Sciences, Heilbronn
o In opposition of Bighthubpm.com, this document explains much ore deeply how a milestone plan is used to its fullest!

====Additional links to other wiki-articles with additional and useful information:====
=====WBS=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Work_Breakdown_Structure_(WBS)

=====Gantt=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/The_Gantt_chart_and_the_usage_nowadays

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Gantt_Charts_as_a_Tool_for_Project_Management

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/The_Gantt_Chart

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Gantt_Chart

=====Critical path=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Critical_chain_project_management_(CCPM)

=====Risk management=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Project_Risk_Management_and_Project_Risk_Management_Processes

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Management_of_risk

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Managing_Uncertainty_and_Risk_on_the_Project

<references />

The best milestone plan is simple but with depths!

2015-09-28T19:14:28Z

S113665:

''Wiki Article:''
''The best milestone plan is simple but with depths''
==Abstract==
The planning part of a project is essential to succeed. The milestone plan is one of the most used planning tools, but also one of the hardest to master! It may seem simple, but many project managers tend to ‘overuse’ milestones as a motivation tool, and therefore adding too many milestones, and labeling every minor task completion as a milestone. This ‘overuse’ often has a negative effect on the team members’ motivation, as it’ll cause loss of luster and distinctiveness, not to mention the time consumption!
That is just one of many mistakes and issues related to milestone planning.

This article will explore and explain the optimal usage of the tool. If done correctly, will the milestone plan act as an enormous motivation tool along with making sure the project is on track and on the way to success.
==Article==
===Big Idea===
A milestone is in its basic form a stone that tells you that you’re one mile down the road. They provide reference points, and are used to reassure travellers that they’re on track and to indicate distance travelled or distance remaining.

In a project a milestone define a completion of something. The only requirement is that the milestone is tied to a quantitative measurement, an internal or external deliverable, or a significant turning point or transition in the project. It is basically an important event marked on a timeline that are recognized when successfully reached.
[[File:milestonesimple.png|right|200px|Figure 1: Basic Milestone Plan with start and end date]]
The Milestone Plan serves as an essential guideline for every project, from big to small. It has a variety of purposes as it shows, how the intermediate products, or deliverables, build towards the final output and therefore gives an important overview. This is much needed, as this overview is required to keep the project under control and to identify upcoming bottlenecks and therefore giving the possibility of taking preventive actions well ahead of the critical point.
The Milestone Plan is furthermore used as motivation tool. A goal and a vision gets the team together going towards the same goal, on the same path, a plan keeps the team on that path, and the Milestone Plan combines these two and adds continuous motivation
It is important to point out that the milestone plan is not to be mistaken for a replacement for any other tools, it is however a strong addition to any project and should never be left out. It can even take care of the entire planning spectrum of a project if done right; keep reading and you’ll soon know why and how!
===Application===
The milestone plan can be made when the project goal and deliverable has been settled and confirmed. It is often even taken in consideration in the fuzzy front end of a project, when negotiations, according to the bid and contract, are made with the customer as the deadlines is coming to an agreement and the plan is being visualized.
[[File:milestone_top_level.gif|left|500px|Figure 2: Top level Milestone Plan, with the total overview and possibility to go in depths to another more detailed level.]]
====Setting the milestones====
Placing milestones on the timeline is a difficult task. It is important to have an even plan with the exact amount of time and space between each milestone. This will promote motivation through sub-goals, by giving the team something to strive for. It is important that the milestones are not too far apart as the team members will forget about it, but it is equally important that they’re not too close as you’ll loose interest and not get the feeling of achieving something as too many minor events are celebrated.
For example, if you’re constructing a car, you don’t need to celebrate the delivery of a bolt for the wheel. Yet it would be a nice thing to celebrate when the wheels are on the car!
A good rule is to have 10% of the total project time duration between each milestone. It should, however, never exceed a 2-week interval to have the continuous motivation.

It is therefore important to define prober milestones for your specific project.
====Define a milestone====
Before you create the timeline with your events you need to determine what kind of milestones you want to “celebrate” and what kind of milestones that makes sense for your project.

Milestones can be grouped under several classifications and each defines an event in its own kind.

▪ Phase transitions occur when the project goes from one phase to another. For example if a product goes from designing to construction a prototype (from software to hardware). You can basically divide phase transitions into six stages: information gathering, or marketing research, planning, design, development, testing, and delivery. Each transition from one stage to another is a viable milestone!

• Rates of total completion are commonly used milestones when the project involves repetition without sequential advancement to the next stage. A good example is a training exercise in which milestones are set for the percentage of employees fully trained or certified, e.g., 25, 50, 75, and 100 percent. This gives the benefits of giving a clearer understanding of the process of the project and understandable by all stakeholders regarding their involvement.

• Performance recognition milestones are achievements that are not directly connected to the advancement of the project, but recognize the quality of the work performed. For example, in the construction of a plant, a typical milestone would be to recognize periodically that employees have logged in a certain number of work hours without a single safety incident.

• Deliverables represents tangible evidence of progress towards the project’s goals. It is therefore a commonly used milestone, as it is also easy to determine. It is by far the most popular choice for a milestone because it represents tangible evidence of progress towards the project's goals.

• Task completion has its resembles with deliverables but define a completion of a specific task. A task milestone could be the completion of the roof on a building, and another to finish the plumbing and so on. This is easy applicable and gives a great overview of the project, not as easy interpreted as the ‘rates of completion’ milestone though, but provides more opportunities regarding the degree of details. It is of great understanding used internal in a project.

A perfect plan for motivation contains some of everything!

You will also need to keep in mind, that milestones needs to be somehow challenging and carry a degree of risk for failure. This is done to inspire your team members to stay motivated and feel a greater sense of accomplishment.
====Creating the plan====
Now that the preferable milestones have been set on the start-to-finish-timeline, you will need to determine the degree of details for each milestone shown on the plan. This is however the part that is hard to master and very time-consuming. It is important to get the right level of details for the user, but not too much as the plan will loose its ability to provide the golden overview.
The overlook of the milestone plan needs the exact amount of information valid to that specific user/reader.
The best Milestone Plan can fit onto a single page!
[[File:Gantt2.jpg|700px|right|Figure 3: Milestone Plan made in cooperation with the Gantt-chart method.]]

Large and complex projects often needs more than one Milestone Plan, as a single plan might not satisfy all the planning needs on the strategic level. In this case “Subsidiary milestone plans” are used. Each Milestone on the master plan goes into a Milestone Plan of its own in a deeper level.
For example there is a master Milestone Plan for a car itself, with milestones such as having the chassis made, installing the engine and so on. When a stakeholder is looking on the master plan to see when the wheels are getting fitted, they don’t care about the subsidiary milestone of the tire getting fitted to the rim. This is however a milestone on the next level, the deeper version only containing milestones for the wheel itself.
This way of doing Milestone Plans is made by incorporating the <ref>[''http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Work_Breakdown_Structure_(WBS)''] ''WBS (Work-Breakdown-Structure)'' </ref>WBS (Work-Breakdown-Structure)– with each level and string acting as a subsidiary milestone plan.
====Basic how-to====
Here’s a step-by-step how-to guide of the basics regarding a Milestone Plan.

# Determine start and end date and set up the timeline.
# Define the audience and balance the “plan-level” accordingly.
# Define milestones worth “celebrating”.
## Keep in mind to choose milestones that complements the recommended time interval and the audience.
# Insert the chosen milestones to the timeline and put in relevant details for each milestone.
# Mind the critical path!
### Add buffers if needed to counteract for unforeseen risks and time delays.
# Supplement the milestones with relevant data.
Now all you need to do is to take a step back and enjoy your newfound golden overview!
===Limitations===
Looking at bigger projects, for example delivery-projects as constructions of all sorts, buildings, ships, it does, of course, has to be a unique production as it would otherwise just be a factory task. It might seem “simple” to create the Milestone plan in these conditions, as you have the goals set, and a contract defined. A contract often contains specific dates where deliverables needs to be delivered and a logic order for when tasks needs to be done. It is here you’ll see the biggest advantages of the Milestone Plan but also the biggest pitfalls. You will have an overload of information and data and possible milestones to keep track of, and of course that is why a Milestone Plan is needed, but to create that plan out of all the data, you need to master the critical path and proper risk management as well as choosing the suitable milestones and appropriate timeline. It is important that the plan can adapt to unforeseen events, without having to redo the entire thing.

Milestones are used to monitor a progress, but there are drawbacks and limitations to their effectiveness. Milestones focus primarily on the progress of the critical path, and can therefore neglect non-critical activities. Resources are therefore focused on the critical activities and even moved from non-critical activities to critical ones to ensure that milestones are met. This can provide a false impression that a project is on schedule even though some activities are being ignored.

===Annotated bibliography===
• http://www.brighthubpm.com/project-planning/68427-successful-project-milestone-planning/
o Brighthubpm.com has some well-explained articles of basic milestone planning along with many other interesting articles regarding project management!

• http://www.brighthubpm.com/project-planning/68429-project-planning-typical-milestones/
o Another great, basic, article from Brighthubpm.com that gives examples of typical milestones.

• http://www.brighthubpm.com/templates-forms/128506-milestone-templates-for-excel-/?cid=parsely_rec
o Yet another article from Bighthubpm.com. This one is with and about templates for milestone planning! Gives some great and free tools for milestone planning.

• “Milestone Planning” Prepared by: Jörg Aldinger, IBIS 8 Matr. 152028 at the University of Applied Sciences, Heilbronn
o In opposition of Bighthubpm.com, this document explains much ore deeply how a milestone plan is used to its fullest!

====Additional links to other wiki-articles with additional and useful information:====
=====WBS=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Work_Breakdown_Structure_(WBS)

=====Gantt=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/The_Gantt_chart_and_the_usage_nowadays

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Gantt_Charts_as_a_Tool_for_Project_Management

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/The_Gantt_Chart

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Gantt_Chart

=====Critical path=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Critical_chain_project_management_(CCPM)

=====Risk management=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Project_Risk_Management_and_Project_Risk_Management_Processes

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Management_of_risk

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Managing_Uncertainty_and_Risk_on_the_Project

<reference/>

The best milestone plan is simple but with depths!

2015-09-28T19:13:29Z

S113665:

''Wiki Article:''
''The best milestone plan is simple but with depths''
==Abstract==
The planning part of a project is essential to succeed. The milestone plan is one of the most used planning tools, but also one of the hardest to master! It may seem simple, but many project managers tend to ‘overuse’ milestones as a motivation tool, and therefore adding too many milestones, and labeling every minor task completion as a milestone. This ‘overuse’ often has a negative effect on the team members’ motivation, as it’ll cause loss of luster and distinctiveness, not to mention the time consumption!
That is just one of many mistakes and issues related to milestone planning.

This article will explore and explain the optimal usage of the tool. If done correctly, will the milestone plan act as an enormous motivation tool along with making sure the project is on track and on the way to success.
==Article==
===Big Idea===
A milestone is in its basic form a stone that tells you that you’re one mile down the road. They provide reference points, and are used to reassure travellers that they’re on track and to indicate distance travelled or distance remaining.

In a project a milestone define a completion of something. The only requirement is that the milestone is tied to a quantitative measurement, an internal or external deliverable, or a significant turning point or transition in the project. It is basically an important event marked on a timeline that are recognized when successfully reached.
[[File:milestonesimple.png|right|200px|Figure 1: Basic Milestone Plan with start and end date]]
The Milestone Plan serves as an essential guideline for every project, from big to small. It has a variety of purposes as it shows, how the intermediate products, or deliverables, build towards the final output and therefore gives an important overview. This is much needed, as this overview is required to keep the project under control and to identify upcoming bottlenecks and therefore giving the possibility of taking preventive actions well ahead of the critical point.
The Milestone Plan is furthermore used as motivation tool. A goal and a vision gets the team together going towards the same goal, on the same path, a plan keeps the team on that path, and the Milestone Plan combines these two and adds continuous motivation
It is important to point out that the milestone plan is not to be mistaken for a replacement for any other tools, it is however a strong addition to any project and should never be left out. It can even take care of the entire planning spectrum of a project if done right; keep reading and you’ll soon know why and how!
===Application===
The milestone plan can be made when the project goal and deliverable has been settled and confirmed. It is often even taken in consideration in the fuzzy front end of a project, when negotiations, according to the bid and contract, are made with the customer as the deadlines is coming to an agreement and the plan is being visualized.
[[File:milestone_top_level.gif|left|500px|Figure 2: Top level Milestone Plan, with the total overview and possibility to go in depths to another more detailed level.]]
====Setting the milestones====
Placing milestones on the timeline is a difficult task. It is important to have an even plan with the exact amount of time and space between each milestone. This will promote motivation through sub-goals, by giving the team something to strive for. It is important that the milestones are not too far apart as the team members will forget about it, but it is equally important that they’re not too close as you’ll loose interest and not get the feeling of achieving something as too many minor events are celebrated.
For example, if you’re constructing a car, you don’t need to celebrate the delivery of a bolt for the wheel. Yet it would be a nice thing to celebrate when the wheels are on the car!
A good rule is to have 10% of the total project time duration between each milestone. It should, however, never exceed a 2-week interval to have the continuous motivation.

It is therefore important to define prober milestones for your specific project.
====Define a milestone====
Before you create the timeline with your events you need to determine what kind of milestones you want to “celebrate” and what kind of milestones that makes sense for your project.

Milestones can be grouped under several classifications and each defines an event in its own kind.

▪ Phase transitions occur when the project goes from one phase to another. For example if a product goes from designing to construction a prototype (from software to hardware). You can basically divide phase transitions into six stages: information gathering, or marketing research, planning, design, development, testing, and delivery. Each transition from one stage to another is a viable milestone!

• Rates of total completion are commonly used milestones when the project involves repetition without sequential advancement to the next stage. A good example is a training exercise in which milestones are set for the percentage of employees fully trained or certified, e.g., 25, 50, 75, and 100 percent. This gives the benefits of giving a clearer understanding of the process of the project and understandable by all stakeholders regarding their involvement.

• Performance recognition milestones are achievements that are not directly connected to the advancement of the project, but recognize the quality of the work performed. For example, in the construction of a plant, a typical milestone would be to recognize periodically that employees have logged in a certain number of work hours without a single safety incident.

• Deliverables represents tangible evidence of progress towards the project’s goals. It is therefore a commonly used milestone, as it is also easy to determine. It is by far the most popular choice for a milestone because it represents tangible evidence of progress towards the project's goals.

• Task completion has its resembles with deliverables but define a completion of a specific task. A task milestone could be the completion of the roof on a building, and another to finish the plumbing and so on. This is easy applicable and gives a great overview of the project, not as easy interpreted as the ‘rates of completion’ milestone though, but provides more opportunities regarding the degree of details. It is of great understanding used internal in a project.

A perfect plan for motivation contains some of everything!

You will also need to keep in mind, that milestones needs to be somehow challenging and carry a degree of risk for failure. This is done to inspire your team members to stay motivated and feel a greater sense of accomplishment.
====Creating the plan====
Now that the preferable milestones have been set on the start-to-finish-timeline, you will need to determine the degree of details for each milestone shown on the plan. This is however the part that is hard to master and very time-consuming. It is important to get the right level of details for the user, but not too much as the plan will loose its ability to provide the golden overview.
The overlook of the milestone plan needs the exact amount of information valid to that specific user/reader.
The best Milestone Plan can fit onto a single page!
[[File:Gantt2.jpg|700px|right|Figure 3: Milestone Plan made in cooperation with the Gantt-chart method.]]

Large and complex projects often needs more than one Milestone Plan, as a single plan might not satisfy all the planning needs on the strategic level. In this case “Subsidiary milestone plans” are used. Each Milestone on the master plan goes into a Milestone Plan of its own in a deeper level.
For example there is a master Milestone Plan for a car itself, with milestones such as having the chassis made, installing the engine and so on. When a stakeholder is looking on the master plan to see when the wheels are getting fitted, they don’t care about the subsidiary milestone of the tire getting fitted to the rim. This is however a milestone on the next level, the deeper version only containing milestones for the wheel itself.
This way of doing Milestone Plans is made by incorporating the <ref>[''http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Work_Breakdown_Structure_(WBS)''] ''WBS (Work-Breakdown-Structure)'' </ref>WBS (Work-Breakdown-Structure)– with each level and string acting as a subsidiary milestone plan.
====Basic how-to====
Here’s a step-by-step how-to guide of the basics regarding a Milestone Plan.

# Determine start and end date and set up the timeline.
# Define the audience and balance the “plan-level” accordingly.
# Define milestones worth “celebrating”.
## Keep in mind to choose milestones that complements the recommended time interval and the audience.
# Insert the chosen milestones to the timeline and put in relevant details for each milestone.
# Mind the critical path!
### Add buffers if needed to counteract for unforeseen risks and time delays.
# Supplement the milestones with relevant data.
Now all you need to do is to take a step back and enjoy your newfound golden overview!
===Limitations===
Looking at bigger projects, for example delivery-projects as constructions of all sorts, buildings, ships, it does, of course, has to be a unique production as it would otherwise just be a factory task. It might seem “simple” to create the Milestone plan in these conditions, as you have the goals set, and a contract defined. A contract often contains specific dates where deliverables needs to be delivered and a logic order for when tasks needs to be done. It is here you’ll see the biggest advantages of the Milestone Plan but also the biggest pitfalls. You will have an overload of information and data and possible milestones to keep track of, and of course that is why a Milestone Plan is needed, but to create that plan out of all the data, you need to master the critical path and proper risk management as well as choosing the suitable milestones and appropriate timeline. It is important that the plan can adapt to unforeseen events, without having to redo the entire thing.

Milestones are used to monitor a progress, but there are drawbacks and limitations to their effectiveness. Milestones focus primarily on the progress of the critical path, and can therefore neglect non-critical activities. Resources are therefore focused on the critical activities and even moved from non-critical activities to critical ones to ensure that milestones are met. This can provide a false impression that a project is on schedule even though some activities are being ignored.

===Annotated bibliography===
• http://www.brighthubpm.com/project-planning/68427-successful-project-milestone-planning/
o Brighthubpm.com has some well-explained articles of basic milestone planning along with many other interesting articles regarding project management!

• http://www.brighthubpm.com/project-planning/68429-project-planning-typical-milestones/
o Another great, basic, article from Brighthubpm.com that gives examples of typical milestones.

• http://www.brighthubpm.com/templates-forms/128506-milestone-templates-for-excel-/?cid=parsely_rec
o Yet another article from Bighthubpm.com. This one is with and about templates for milestone planning! Gives some great and free tools for milestone planning.

• “Milestone Planning” Prepared by: Jörg Aldinger, IBIS 8 Matr. 152028 at the University of Applied Sciences, Heilbronn
o In opposition of Bighthubpm.com, this document explains much ore deeply how a milestone plan is used to its fullest!

====Additional links to other wiki-articles with additional and useful information:====
=====WBS=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Work_Breakdown_Structure_(WBS)

=====Gantt=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/The_Gantt_chart_and_the_usage_nowadays

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Gantt_Charts_as_a_Tool_for_Project_Management

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/The_Gantt_Chart

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Gantt_Chart

=====Critical path=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Critical_chain_project_management_(CCPM)

=====Risk management=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Project_Risk_Management_and_Project_Risk_Management_Processes

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Management_of_risk

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Managing_Uncertainty_and_Risk_on_the_Project

The best milestone plan is simple but with depths!

2015-09-28T19:09:05Z

S113665:

The best milestone plan is simple but with depths!

2015-09-28T19:07:02Z

S113665:

''Wiki Article:''
''The best milestone plan is simple but with depths''
==Abstract==
The planning part of a project is essential to succeed. The milestone plan is one of the most used planning tools, but also one of the hardest to master! It may seem simple, but many project managers tend to ‘overuse’ milestones as a motivation tool, and therefore adding too many milestones, and labeling every minor task completion as a milestone. This ‘overuse’ often has a negative effect on the team members’ motivation, as it’ll cause loss of luster and distinctiveness, not to mention the time consumption!
That is just one of many mistakes and issues related to milestone planning.

This article will explore and explain the optimal usage of the tool. If done correctly, will the milestone plan act as an enormous motivation tool along with making sure the project is on track and on the way to success.
==Article==
===Big Idea===
A milestone is in its basic form a stone that tells you that you’re one mile down the road. They provide reference points, and are used to reassure travellers that they’re on track and to indicate distance travelled or distance remaining.

In a project a milestone define a completion of something. The only requirement is that the milestone is tied to a quantitative measurement, an internal or external deliverable, or a significant turning point or transition in the project. It is basically an important event marked on a timeline that are recognized when successfully reached.
[[File:milestonesimple.png|200px|Figure 1: Basic Milestone Plan with start and end date]]
The Milestone Plan serves as an essential guideline for every project, from big to small. It has a variety of purposes as it shows, how the intermediate products, or deliverables, build towards the final output and therefore gives an important overview. This is much needed, as this overview is required to keep the project under control and to identify upcoming bottlenecks and therefore giving the possibility of taking preventive actions well ahead of the critical point.
The Milestone Plan is furthermore used as motivation tool. A goal and a vision gets the team together going towards the same goal, on the same path, a plan keeps the team on that path, and the Milestone Plan combines these two and adds continuous motivation
It is important to point out that the milestone plan is not to be mistaken for a replacement for any other tools, it is however a strong addition to any project and should never be left out. It can even take care of the entire planning spectrum of a project if done right; keep reading and you’ll soon know why and how!
===Application===
The milestone plan can be made when the project goal and deliverable has been settled and confirmed. It is often even taken in consideration in the fuzzy front end of a project, when negotiations, according to the bid and contract, are made with the customer as the deadlines is coming to an agreement and the plan is being visualized.
[[File:milestone_top_level.gif|500px|Figure 2: Top level Milestone Plan, with the total overview and possibility to go in depths to another more detailed level.]]
====Setting the milestones====
Placing milestones on the timeline is a difficult task. It is important to have an even plan with the exact amount of time and space between each milestone. This will promote motivation through sub-goals, by giving the team something to strive for. It is important that the milestones are not too far apart as the team members will forget about it, but it is equally important that they’re not too close as you’ll loose interest and not get the feeling of achieving something as too many minor events are celebrated.
For example, if you’re constructing a car, you don’t need to celebrate the delivery of a bolt for the wheel. Yet it would be a nice thing to celebrate when the wheels are on the car!
A good rule is to have 10% of the total project time duration between each milestone. It should, however, never exceed a 2-week interval to have the continuous motivation.

It is therefore important to define prober milestones for your specific project.
====Define a milestone====
Before you create the timeline with your events you need to determine what kind of milestones you want to “celebrate” and what kind of milestones that makes sense for your project.

Milestones can be grouped under several classifications and each defines an event in its own kind.

▪ Phase transitions occur when the project goes from one phase to another. For example if a product goes from designing to construction a prototype (from software to hardware). You can basically divide phase transitions into six stages: information gathering, or marketing research, planning, design, development, testing, and delivery. Each transition from one stage to another is a viable milestone!

• Rates of total completion are commonly used milestones when the project involves repetition without sequential advancement to the next stage. A good example is a training exercise in which milestones are set for the percentage of employees fully trained or certified, e.g., 25, 50, 75, and 100 percent. This gives the benefits of giving a clearer understanding of the process of the project and understandable by all stakeholders regarding their involvement.

• Performance recognition milestones are achievements that are not directly connected to the advancement of the project, but recognize the quality of the work performed. For example, in the construction of a plant, a typical milestone would be to recognize periodically that employees have logged in a certain number of work hours without a single safety incident.

• Deliverables represents tangible evidence of progress towards the project’s goals. It is therefore a commonly used milestone, as it is also easy to determine. It is by far the most popular choice for a milestone because it represents tangible evidence of progress towards the project's goals.

• Task completion has its resembles with deliverables but define a completion of a specific task. A task milestone could be the completion of the roof on a building, and another to finish the plumbing and so on. This is easy applicable and gives a great overview of the project, not as easy interpreted as the ‘rates of completion’ milestone though, but provides more opportunities regarding the degree of details. It is of great understanding used internal in a project.

A perfect plan for motivation contains some of everything!

You will also need to keep in mind, that milestones needs to be somehow challenging and carry a degree of risk for failure. This is done to inspire your team members to stay motivated and feel a greater sense of accomplishment.
====Creating the plan====
Now that the preferable milestones have been set on the start-to-finish-timeline, you will need to determine the degree of details for each milestone shown on the plan. This is however the part that is hard to master and very time-consuming. It is important to get the right level of details for the user, but not too much as the plan will loose its ability to provide the golden overview.
The overlook of the milestone plan needs the exact amount of information valid to that specific user/reader.
The best Milestone Plan can fit onto a single page!
[[File:Gantt2.jpg|700px|Figure 3: Milestone Plan made in cooperation with the Gantt-chart method.]]

Large and complex projects often needs more than one Milestone Plan, as a single plan might not satisfy all the planning needs on the strategic level. In this case “Subsidiary milestone plans” are used. Each Milestone on the master plan goes into a Milestone Plan of its own in a deeper level.
For example there is a master Milestone Plan for a car itself, with milestones such as having the chassis made, installing the engine and so on. When a stakeholder is looking on the master plan to see when the wheels are getting fitted, they don’t care about the subsidiary milestone of the tire getting fitted to the rim. This is however a milestone on the next level, the deeper version only containing milestones for the wheel itself.
This way of doing Milestone Plans is made by incorporating the WBS (Work-Breakdown-Structure)– with each level and string acting as a subsidiary milestone plan.
====Basic how-to====
Here’s a step-by-step how-to guide of the basics regarding a Milestone Plan.

# Determine start and end date and set up the timeline.
# Define the audience and balance the “plan-level” accordingly.
# Define milestones worth “celebrating”.
## Keep in mind to choose milestones that complements the recommended time interval and the audience.
# Insert the chosen milestones to the timeline and put in relevant details for each milestone.
# Mind the critical path!
### Add buffers if needed to counteract for unforeseen risks and time delays.
# Supplement the milestones with relevant data.
Now all you need to do is to take a step back and enjoy your newfound golden overview!
===Limitations===
Looking at bigger projects, for example delivery-projects as constructions of all sorts, buildings, ships, it does, of course, has to be a unique production as it would otherwise just be a factory task. It might seem “simple” to create the Milestone plan in these conditions, as you have the goals set, and a contract defined. A contract often contains specific dates where deliverables needs to be delivered and a logic order for when tasks needs to be done. It is here you’ll see the biggest advantages of the Milestone Plan but also the biggest pitfalls. You will have an overload of information and data and possible milestones to keep track of, and of course that is why a Milestone Plan is needed, but to create that plan out of all the data, you need to master the critical path and proper risk management as well as choosing the suitable milestones and appropriate timeline. It is important that the plan can adapt to unforeseen events, without having to redo the entire thing.

Milestones are used to monitor a progress, but there are drawbacks and limitations to their effectiveness. Milestones focus primarily on the progress of the critical path, and can therefore neglect non-critical activities. Resources are therefore focused on the critical activities and even moved from non-critical activities to critical ones to ensure that milestones are met. This can provide a false impression that a project is on schedule even though some activities are being ignored.

===Annotated bibliography===
• http://www.brighthubpm.com/project-planning/68427-successful-project-milestone-planning/
o Brighthubpm.com has some well-explained articles of basic milestone planning along with many other interesting articles regarding project management!

• http://www.brighthubpm.com/project-planning/68429-project-planning-typical-milestones/
o Another great, basic, article from Brighthubpm.com that gives examples of typical milestones.

• http://www.brighthubpm.com/templates-forms/128506-milestone-templates-for-excel-/?cid=parsely_rec
o Yet another article from Bighthubpm.com. This one is with and about templates for milestone planning! Gives some great and free tools for milestone planning.

• “Milestone Planning” Prepared by: Jörg Aldinger, IBIS 8 Matr. 152028 at the University of Applied Sciences, Heilbronn
o In opposition of Bighthubpm.com, this document explains much ore deeply how a milestone plan is used to its fullest!

====Additional links to other wiki-articles with additional and useful information:====
=====WBS=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Work_Breakdown_Structure_(WBS)

=====Gantt=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/The_Gantt_chart_and_the_usage_nowadays

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Gantt_Charts_as_a_Tool_for_Project_Management

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/The_Gantt_Chart

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Gantt_Chart

=====Critical path=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Critical_chain_project_management_(CCPM)

=====Risk management=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Project_Risk_Management_and_Project_Risk_Management_Processes

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Management_of_risk

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Managing_Uncertainty_and_Risk_on_the_Project

The best milestone plan is simple but with depths!

2015-09-28T19:06:34Z

S113665:

''Wiki Article:''
''The best milestone plan is simple but with depths''
==Abstract==
The planning part of a project is essential to succeed. The milestone plan is one of the most used planning tools, but also one of the hardest to master! It may seem simple, but many project managers tend to ‘overuse’ milestones as a motivation tool, and therefore adding too many milestones, and labeling every minor task completion as a milestone. This ‘overuse’ often has a negative effect on the team members’ motivation, as it’ll cause loss of luster and distinctiveness, not to mention the time consumption!
That is just one of many mistakes and issues related to milestone planning.

This article will explore and explain the optimal usage of the tool. If done correctly, will the milestone plan act as an enormous motivation tool along with making sure the project is on track and on the way to success.
==Article==
===Big Idea===
A milestone is in its basic form a stone that tells you that you’re one mile down the road. They provide reference points, and are used to reassure travellers that they’re on track and to indicate distance travelled or distance remaining.

In a project a milestone define a completion of something. The only requirement is that the milestone is tied to a quantitative measurement, an internal or external deliverable, or a significant turning point or transition in the project. It is basically an important event marked on a timeline that are recognized when successfully reached.
[[File:milestonesimple.png|700px|Figure 1: Basic Milestone Plan with start and end date]]
The Milestone Plan serves as an essential guideline for every project, from big to small. It has a variety of purposes as it shows, how the intermediate products, or deliverables, build towards the final output and therefore gives an important overview. This is much needed, as this overview is required to keep the project under control and to identify upcoming bottlenecks and therefore giving the possibility of taking preventive actions well ahead of the critical point.
The Milestone Plan is furthermore used as motivation tool. A goal and a vision gets the team together going towards the same goal, on the same path, a plan keeps the team on that path, and the Milestone Plan combines these two and adds continuous motivation
It is important to point out that the milestone plan is not to be mistaken for a replacement for any other tools, it is however a strong addition to any project and should never be left out. It can even take care of the entire planning spectrum of a project if done right; keep reading and you’ll soon know why and how!
===Application===
The milestone plan can be made when the project goal and deliverable has been settled and confirmed. It is often even taken in consideration in the fuzzy front end of a project, when negotiations, according to the bid and contract, are made with the customer as the deadlines is coming to an agreement and the plan is being visualized.
[[File:milestone_top_level.gif|700px|Figure 2: Top level Milestone Plan, with the total overview and possibility to go in depths to another more detailed level.]]
====Setting the milestones====
Placing milestones on the timeline is a difficult task. It is important to have an even plan with the exact amount of time and space between each milestone. This will promote motivation through sub-goals, by giving the team something to strive for. It is important that the milestones are not too far apart as the team members will forget about it, but it is equally important that they’re not too close as you’ll loose interest and not get the feeling of achieving something as too many minor events are celebrated.
For example, if you’re constructing a car, you don’t need to celebrate the delivery of a bolt for the wheel. Yet it would be a nice thing to celebrate when the wheels are on the car!
A good rule is to have 10% of the total project time duration between each milestone. It should, however, never exceed a 2-week interval to have the continuous motivation.

It is therefore important to define prober milestones for your specific project.
====Define a milestone====
Before you create the timeline with your events you need to determine what kind of milestones you want to “celebrate” and what kind of milestones that makes sense for your project.

Milestones can be grouped under several classifications and each defines an event in its own kind.

▪ Phase transitions occur when the project goes from one phase to another. For example if a product goes from designing to construction a prototype (from software to hardware). You can basically divide phase transitions into six stages: information gathering, or marketing research, planning, design, development, testing, and delivery. Each transition from one stage to another is a viable milestone!

• Rates of total completion are commonly used milestones when the project involves repetition without sequential advancement to the next stage. A good example is a training exercise in which milestones are set for the percentage of employees fully trained or certified, e.g., 25, 50, 75, and 100 percent. This gives the benefits of giving a clearer understanding of the process of the project and understandable by all stakeholders regarding their involvement.

• Performance recognition milestones are achievements that are not directly connected to the advancement of the project, but recognize the quality of the work performed. For example, in the construction of a plant, a typical milestone would be to recognize periodically that employees have logged in a certain number of work hours without a single safety incident.

• Deliverables represents tangible evidence of progress towards the project’s goals. It is therefore a commonly used milestone, as it is also easy to determine. It is by far the most popular choice for a milestone because it represents tangible evidence of progress towards the project's goals.

• Task completion has its resembles with deliverables but define a completion of a specific task. A task milestone could be the completion of the roof on a building, and another to finish the plumbing and so on. This is easy applicable and gives a great overview of the project, not as easy interpreted as the ‘rates of completion’ milestone though, but provides more opportunities regarding the degree of details. It is of great understanding used internal in a project.

A perfect plan for motivation contains some of everything!

You will also need to keep in mind, that milestones needs to be somehow challenging and carry a degree of risk for failure. This is done to inspire your team members to stay motivated and feel a greater sense of accomplishment.
====Creating the plan====
Now that the preferable milestones have been set on the start-to-finish-timeline, you will need to determine the degree of details for each milestone shown on the plan. This is however the part that is hard to master and very time-consuming. It is important to get the right level of details for the user, but not too much as the plan will loose its ability to provide the golden overview.
The overlook of the milestone plan needs the exact amount of information valid to that specific user/reader.
The best Milestone Plan can fit onto a single page!
[[File:Gantt2.jpg|700px|Figure 3: Milestone Plan made in cooperation with the Gantt-chart method.]]

Large and complex projects often needs more than one Milestone Plan, as a single plan might not satisfy all the planning needs on the strategic level. In this case “Subsidiary milestone plans” are used. Each Milestone on the master plan goes into a Milestone Plan of its own in a deeper level.
For example there is a master Milestone Plan for a car itself, with milestones such as having the chassis made, installing the engine and so on. When a stakeholder is looking on the master plan to see when the wheels are getting fitted, they don’t care about the subsidiary milestone of the tire getting fitted to the rim. This is however a milestone on the next level, the deeper version only containing milestones for the wheel itself.
This way of doing Milestone Plans is made by incorporating the WBS (Work-Breakdown-Structure)– with each level and string acting as a subsidiary milestone plan.
====Basic how-to====
Here’s a step-by-step how-to guide of the basics regarding a Milestone Plan.

# Determine start and end date and set up the timeline.
# Define the audience and balance the “plan-level” accordingly.
# Define milestones worth “celebrating”.
## Keep in mind to choose milestones that complements the recommended time interval and the audience.
# Insert the chosen milestones to the timeline and put in relevant details for each milestone.
# Mind the critical path!
### Add buffers if needed to counteract for unforeseen risks and time delays.
# Supplement the milestones with relevant data.
Now all you need to do is to take a step back and enjoy your newfound golden overview!
===Limitations===
Looking at bigger projects, for example delivery-projects as constructions of all sorts, buildings, ships, it does, of course, has to be a unique production as it would otherwise just be a factory task. It might seem “simple” to create the Milestone plan in these conditions, as you have the goals set, and a contract defined. A contract often contains specific dates where deliverables needs to be delivered and a logic order for when tasks needs to be done. It is here you’ll see the biggest advantages of the Milestone Plan but also the biggest pitfalls. You will have an overload of information and data and possible milestones to keep track of, and of course that is why a Milestone Plan is needed, but to create that plan out of all the data, you need to master the critical path and proper risk management as well as choosing the suitable milestones and appropriate timeline. It is important that the plan can adapt to unforeseen events, without having to redo the entire thing.

Milestones are used to monitor a progress, but there are drawbacks and limitations to their effectiveness. Milestones focus primarily on the progress of the critical path, and can therefore neglect non-critical activities. Resources are therefore focused on the critical activities and even moved from non-critical activities to critical ones to ensure that milestones are met. This can provide a false impression that a project is on schedule even though some activities are being ignored.

===Annotated bibliography===
• http://www.brighthubpm.com/project-planning/68427-successful-project-milestone-planning/
o Brighthubpm.com has some well-explained articles of basic milestone planning along with many other interesting articles regarding project management!

• http://www.brighthubpm.com/project-planning/68429-project-planning-typical-milestones/
o Another great, basic, article from Brighthubpm.com that gives examples of typical milestones.

• http://www.brighthubpm.com/templates-forms/128506-milestone-templates-for-excel-/?cid=parsely_rec
o Yet another article from Bighthubpm.com. This one is with and about templates for milestone planning! Gives some great and free tools for milestone planning.

• “Milestone Planning” Prepared by: Jörg Aldinger, IBIS 8 Matr. 152028 at the University of Applied Sciences, Heilbronn
o In opposition of Bighthubpm.com, this document explains much ore deeply how a milestone plan is used to its fullest!

====Additional links to other wiki-articles with additional and useful information:====
=====WBS=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Work_Breakdown_Structure_(WBS)

=====Gantt=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/The_Gantt_chart_and_the_usage_nowadays

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Gantt_Charts_as_a_Tool_for_Project_Management

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/The_Gantt_Chart

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Gantt_Chart

=====Critical path=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Critical_chain_project_management_(CCPM)

=====Risk management=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Project_Risk_Management_and_Project_Risk_Management_Processes

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Management_of_risk

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Managing_Uncertainty_and_Risk_on_the_Project

File:Milestonesimple.png

2015-09-28T19:04:02Z

S113665:

The best milestone plan is simple but with depths!

2015-09-28T19:03:53Z

S113665:

''Wiki Article:''
''The best milestone plan is simple but with depths''
==Abstract==
The planning part of a project is essential to succeed. The milestone plan is one of the most used planning tools, but also one of the hardest to master! It may seem simple, but many project managers tend to ‘overuse’ milestones as a motivation tool, and therefore adding too many milestones, and labeling every minor task completion as a milestone. This ‘overuse’ often has a negative effect on the team members’ motivation, as it’ll cause loss of luster and distinctiveness, not to mention the time consumption!
That is just one of many mistakes and issues related to milestone planning.

This article will explore and explain the optimal usage of the tool. If done correctly, will the milestone plan act as an enormous motivation tool along with making sure the project is on track and on the way to success.
==Article==
===Big Idea===
A milestone is in its basic form a stone that tells you that you’re one mile down the road. They provide reference points, and are used to reassure travellers that they’re on track and to indicate distance travelled or distance remaining.

In a project a milestone define a completion of something. The only requirement is that the milestone is tied to a quantitative measurement, an internal or external deliverable, or a significant turning point or transition in the project. It is basically an important event marked on a timeline that are recognized when successfully reached.

The Milestone Plan serves as an essential guideline for every project, from big to small. It has a variety of purposes as it shows, how the intermediate products, or deliverables, build towards the final output and therefore gives an important overview. This is much needed, as this overview is required to keep the project under control and to identify upcoming bottlenecks and therefore giving the possibility of taking preventive actions well ahead of the critical point.
The Milestone Plan is furthermore used as motivation tool. A goal and a vision gets the team together going towards the same goal, on the same path, a plan keeps the team on that path, and the Milestone Plan combines these two and adds continuous motivation
It is important to point out that the milestone plan is not to be mistaken for a replacement for any other tools, it is however a strong addition to any project and should never be left out. It can even take care of the entire planning spectrum of a project if done right; keep reading and you’ll soon know why and how!
===Application===
The milestone plan can be made when the project goal and deliverable has been settled and confirmed. It is often even taken in consideration in the fuzzy front end of a project, when negotiations, according to the bid and contract, are made with the customer as the deadlines is coming to an agreement and the plan is being visualized.
[[File:milestone_top_level.gif|700px|Figure 2: Top level Milestone Plan, with the total overview and possibility to go in depths to another more detailed level.]]
====Setting the milestones====
Placing milestones on the timeline is a difficult task. It is important to have an even plan with the exact amount of time and space between each milestone. This will promote motivation through sub-goals, by giving the team something to strive for. It is important that the milestones are not too far apart as the team members will forget about it, but it is equally important that they’re not too close as you’ll loose interest and not get the feeling of achieving something as too many minor events are celebrated.
For example, if you’re constructing a car, you don’t need to celebrate the delivery of a bolt for the wheel. Yet it would be a nice thing to celebrate when the wheels are on the car!
A good rule is to have 10% of the total project time duration between each milestone. It should, however, never exceed a 2-week interval to have the continuous motivation.

It is therefore important to define prober milestones for your specific project.
====Define a milestone====
Before you create the timeline with your events you need to determine what kind of milestones you want to “celebrate” and what kind of milestones that makes sense for your project.

Milestones can be grouped under several classifications and each defines an event in its own kind.

▪ Phase transitions occur when the project goes from one phase to another. For example if a product goes from designing to construction a prototype (from software to hardware). You can basically divide phase transitions into six stages: information gathering, or marketing research, planning, design, development, testing, and delivery. Each transition from one stage to another is a viable milestone!

• Rates of total completion are commonly used milestones when the project involves repetition without sequential advancement to the next stage. A good example is a training exercise in which milestones are set for the percentage of employees fully trained or certified, e.g., 25, 50, 75, and 100 percent. This gives the benefits of giving a clearer understanding of the process of the project and understandable by all stakeholders regarding their involvement.

• Performance recognition milestones are achievements that are not directly connected to the advancement of the project, but recognize the quality of the work performed. For example, in the construction of a plant, a typical milestone would be to recognize periodically that employees have logged in a certain number of work hours without a single safety incident.

• Deliverables represents tangible evidence of progress towards the project’s goals. It is therefore a commonly used milestone, as it is also easy to determine. It is by far the most popular choice for a milestone because it represents tangible evidence of progress towards the project's goals.

• Task completion has its resembles with deliverables but define a completion of a specific task. A task milestone could be the completion of the roof on a building, and another to finish the plumbing and so on. This is easy applicable and gives a great overview of the project, not as easy interpreted as the ‘rates of completion’ milestone though, but provides more opportunities regarding the degree of details. It is of great understanding used internal in a project.

A perfect plan for motivation contains some of everything!

You will also need to keep in mind, that milestones needs to be somehow challenging and carry a degree of risk for failure. This is done to inspire your team members to stay motivated and feel a greater sense of accomplishment.
====Creating the plan====
Now that the preferable milestones have been set on the start-to-finish-timeline, you will need to determine the degree of details for each milestone shown on the plan. This is however the part that is hard to master and very time-consuming. It is important to get the right level of details for the user, but not too much as the plan will loose its ability to provide the golden overview.
The overlook of the milestone plan needs the exact amount of information valid to that specific user/reader.
The best Milestone Plan can fit onto a single page!
[[File:Gantt2.jpg|700px|Figure 3: Milestone Plan made in cooperation with the Gantt-chart method.]]

Large and complex projects often needs more than one Milestone Plan, as a single plan might not satisfy all the planning needs on the strategic level. In this case “Subsidiary milestone plans” are used. Each Milestone on the master plan goes into a Milestone Plan of its own in a deeper level.
For example there is a master Milestone Plan for a car itself, with milestones such as having the chassis made, installing the engine and so on. When a stakeholder is looking on the master plan to see when the wheels are getting fitted, they don’t care about the subsidiary milestone of the tire getting fitted to the rim. This is however a milestone on the next level, the deeper version only containing milestones for the wheel itself.
This way of doing Milestone Plans is made by incorporating the WBS (Work-Breakdown-Structure)– with each level and string acting as a subsidiary milestone plan.
====Basic how-to====
Here’s a step-by-step how-to guide of the basics regarding a Milestone Plan.

# Determine start and end date and set up the timeline.
# Define the audience and balance the “plan-level” accordingly.
# Define milestones worth “celebrating”.
## Keep in mind to choose milestones that complements the recommended time interval and the audience.
# Insert the chosen milestones to the timeline and put in relevant details for each milestone.
# Mind the critical path!
### Add buffers if needed to counteract for unforeseen risks and time delays.
# Supplement the milestones with relevant data.
Now all you need to do is to take a step back and enjoy your newfound golden overview!
===Limitations===
Looking at bigger projects, for example delivery-projects as constructions of all sorts, buildings, ships, it does, of course, has to be a unique production as it would otherwise just be a factory task. It might seem “simple” to create the Milestone plan in these conditions, as you have the goals set, and a contract defined. A contract often contains specific dates where deliverables needs to be delivered and a logic order for when tasks needs to be done. It is here you’ll see the biggest advantages of the Milestone Plan but also the biggest pitfalls. You will have an overload of information and data and possible milestones to keep track of, and of course that is why a Milestone Plan is needed, but to create that plan out of all the data, you need to master the critical path and proper risk management as well as choosing the suitable milestones and appropriate timeline. It is important that the plan can adapt to unforeseen events, without having to redo the entire thing.

Milestones are used to monitor a progress, but there are drawbacks and limitations to their effectiveness. Milestones focus primarily on the progress of the critical path, and can therefore neglect non-critical activities. Resources are therefore focused on the critical activities and even moved from non-critical activities to critical ones to ensure that milestones are met. This can provide a false impression that a project is on schedule even though some activities are being ignored.

===Annotated bibliography===
• http://www.brighthubpm.com/project-planning/68427-successful-project-milestone-planning/
o Brighthubpm.com has some well-explained articles of basic milestone planning along with many other interesting articles regarding project management!

• http://www.brighthubpm.com/project-planning/68429-project-planning-typical-milestones/
o Another great, basic, article from Brighthubpm.com that gives examples of typical milestones.

• http://www.brighthubpm.com/templates-forms/128506-milestone-templates-for-excel-/?cid=parsely_rec
o Yet another article from Bighthubpm.com. This one is with and about templates for milestone planning! Gives some great and free tools for milestone planning.

• “Milestone Planning” Prepared by: Jörg Aldinger, IBIS 8 Matr. 152028 at the University of Applied Sciences, Heilbronn
o In opposition of Bighthubpm.com, this document explains much ore deeply how a milestone plan is used to its fullest!

====Additional links to other wiki-articles with additional and useful information:====
=====WBS=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Work_Breakdown_Structure_(WBS)

=====Gantt=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/The_Gantt_chart_and_the_usage_nowadays

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Gantt_Charts_as_a_Tool_for_Project_Management

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/The_Gantt_Chart

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Gantt_Chart

=====Critical path=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Critical_chain_project_management_(CCPM)

=====Risk management=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Project_Risk_Management_and_Project_Risk_Management_Processes

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Management_of_risk

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Managing_Uncertainty_and_Risk_on_the_Project

File:Milestone simple.png

2015-09-28T19:01:52Z

S113665:

The best milestone plan is simple but with depths!

2015-09-28T19:01:11Z

S113665:

''Wiki Article:''
''The best milestone plan is simple but with depths''
==Abstract==
The planning part of a project is essential to succeed. The milestone plan is one of the most used planning tools, but also one of the hardest to master! It may seem simple, but many project managers tend to ‘overuse’ milestones as a motivation tool, and therefore adding too many milestones, and labeling every minor task completion as a milestone. This ‘overuse’ often has a negative effect on the team members’ motivation, as it’ll cause loss of luster and distinctiveness, not to mention the time consumption!
That is just one of many mistakes and issues related to milestone planning.

This article will explore and explain the optimal usage of the tool. If done correctly, will the milestone plan act as an enormous motivation tool along with making sure the project is on track and on the way to success.
==Article==
===Big Idea===
A milestone is in its basic form a stone that tells you that you’re one mile down the road. They provide reference points, and are used to reassure travellers that they’re on track and to indicate distance travelled or distance remaining.

In a project a milestone define a completion of something. The only requirement is that the milestone is tied to a quantitative measurement, an internal or external deliverable, or a significant turning point or transition in the project. It is basically an important event marked on a timeline that are recognized when successfully reached.

The Milestone Plan serves as an essential guideline for every project, from big to small. It has a variety of purposes as it shows, how the intermediate products, or deliverables, build towards the final output and therefore gives an important overview. This is much needed, as this overview is required to keep the project under control and to identify upcoming bottlenecks and therefore giving the possibility of taking preventive actions well ahead of the critical point.
The Milestone Plan is furthermore used as motivation tool. A goal and a vision gets the team together going towards the same goal, on the same path, a plan keeps the team on that path, and the Milestone Plan combines these two and adds continuous motivation
It is important to point out that the milestone plan is not to be mistaken for a replacement for any other tools, it is however a strong addition to any project and should never be left out. It can even take care of the entire planning spectrum of a project if done right; keep reading and you’ll soon know why and how!
===Application===
The milestone plan can be made when the project goal and deliverable has been settled and confirmed. It is often even taken in consideration in the fuzzy front end of a project, when negotiations, according to the bid and contract, are made with the customer as the deadlines is coming to an agreement and the plan is being visualized.
[[File:milestone_top_level.gif|700px|thumb|Figure 2: Top level Milestone Plan, with the total overview and possibility to go in depths to another more detailed level.]]
====Setting the milestones====
Placing milestones on the timeline is a difficult task. It is important to have an even plan with the exact amount of time and space between each milestone. This will promote motivation through sub-goals, by giving the team something to strive for. It is important that the milestones are not too far apart as the team members will forget about it, but it is equally important that they’re not too close as you’ll loose interest and not get the feeling of achieving something as too many minor events are celebrated.
For example, if you’re constructing a car, you don’t need to celebrate the delivery of a bolt for the wheel. Yet it would be a nice thing to celebrate when the wheels are on the car!
A good rule is to have 10% of the total project time duration between each milestone. It should, however, never exceed a 2-week interval to have the continuous motivation.

It is therefore important to define prober milestones for your specific project.
====Define a milestone====
Before you create the timeline with your events you need to determine what kind of milestones you want to “celebrate” and what kind of milestones that makes sense for your project.

Milestones can be grouped under several classifications and each defines an event in its own kind.

▪ Phase transitions occur when the project goes from one phase to another. For example if a product goes from designing to construction a prototype (from software to hardware). You can basically divide phase transitions into six stages: information gathering, or marketing research, planning, design, development, testing, and delivery. Each transition from one stage to another is a viable milestone!

• Rates of total completion are commonly used milestones when the project involves repetition without sequential advancement to the next stage. A good example is a training exercise in which milestones are set for the percentage of employees fully trained or certified, e.g., 25, 50, 75, and 100 percent. This gives the benefits of giving a clearer understanding of the process of the project and understandable by all stakeholders regarding their involvement.

• Performance recognition milestones are achievements that are not directly connected to the advancement of the project, but recognize the quality of the work performed. For example, in the construction of a plant, a typical milestone would be to recognize periodically that employees have logged in a certain number of work hours without a single safety incident.

• Deliverables represents tangible evidence of progress towards the project’s goals. It is therefore a commonly used milestone, as it is also easy to determine. It is by far the most popular choice for a milestone because it represents tangible evidence of progress towards the project's goals.

• Task completion has its resembles with deliverables but define a completion of a specific task. A task milestone could be the completion of the roof on a building, and another to finish the plumbing and so on. This is easy applicable and gives a great overview of the project, not as easy interpreted as the ‘rates of completion’ milestone though, but provides more opportunities regarding the degree of details. It is of great understanding used internal in a project.

A perfect plan for motivation contains some of everything!

You will also need to keep in mind, that milestones needs to be somehow challenging and carry a degree of risk for failure. This is done to inspire your team members to stay motivated and feel a greater sense of accomplishment.
====Creating the plan====
Now that the preferable milestones have been set on the start-to-finish-timeline, you will need to determine the degree of details for each milestone shown on the plan. This is however the part that is hard to master and very time-consuming. It is important to get the right level of details for the user, but not too much as the plan will loose its ability to provide the golden overview.
The overlook of the milestone plan needs the exact amount of information valid to that specific user/reader.
The best Milestone Plan can fit onto a single page!
[[File:Gantt2.jpg|700px|thumb|Figure 3: Milestone Plan made in cooperation with the Gantt-chart method.]]

Large and complex projects often needs more than one Milestone Plan, as a single plan might not satisfy all the planning needs on the strategic level. In this case “Subsidiary milestone plans” are used. Each Milestone on the master plan goes into a Milestone Plan of its own in a deeper level.
For example there is a master Milestone Plan for a car itself, with milestones such as having the chassis made, installing the engine and so on. When a stakeholder is looking on the master plan to see when the wheels are getting fitted, they don’t care about the subsidiary milestone of the tire getting fitted to the rim. This is however a milestone on the next level, the deeper version only containing milestones for the wheel itself.
This way of doing Milestone Plans is made by incorporating the WBS (Work-Breakdown-Structure)– with each level and string acting as a subsidiary milestone plan.
====Basic how-to====
Here’s a step-by-step how-to guide of the basics regarding a Milestone Plan.

# Determine start and end date and set up the timeline.
# Define the audience and balance the “plan-level” accordingly.
# Define milestones worth “celebrating”.
## Keep in mind to choose milestones that complements the recommended time interval and the audience.
# Insert the chosen milestones to the timeline and put in relevant details for each milestone.
# Mind the critical path!
### Add buffers if needed to counteract for unforeseen risks and time delays.
# Supplement the milestones with relevant data.
Now all you need to do is to take a step back and enjoy your newfound golden overview!
===Limitations===
Looking at bigger projects, for example delivery-projects as constructions of all sorts, buildings, ships, it does, of course, has to be a unique production as it would otherwise just be a factory task. It might seem “simple” to create the Milestone plan in these conditions, as you have the goals set, and a contract defined. A contract often contains specific dates where deliverables needs to be delivered and a logic order for when tasks needs to be done. It is here you’ll see the biggest advantages of the Milestone Plan but also the biggest pitfalls. You will have an overload of information and data and possible milestones to keep track of, and of course that is why a Milestone Plan is needed, but to create that plan out of all the data, you need to master the critical path and proper risk management as well as choosing the suitable milestones and appropriate timeline. It is important that the plan can adapt to unforeseen events, without having to redo the entire thing.

Milestones are used to monitor a progress, but there are drawbacks and limitations to their effectiveness. Milestones focus primarily on the progress of the critical path, and can therefore neglect non-critical activities. Resources are therefore focused on the critical activities and even moved from non-critical activities to critical ones to ensure that milestones are met. This can provide a false impression that a project is on schedule even though some activities are being ignored.

===Annotated bibliography===
• http://www.brighthubpm.com/project-planning/68427-successful-project-milestone-planning/
o Brighthubpm.com has some well-explained articles of basic milestone planning along with many other interesting articles regarding project management!

• http://www.brighthubpm.com/project-planning/68429-project-planning-typical-milestones/
o Another great, basic, article from Brighthubpm.com that gives examples of typical milestones.

• http://www.brighthubpm.com/templates-forms/128506-milestone-templates-for-excel-/?cid=parsely_rec
o Yet another article from Bighthubpm.com. This one is with and about templates for milestone planning! Gives some great and free tools for milestone planning.

• “Milestone Planning” Prepared by: Jörg Aldinger, IBIS 8 Matr. 152028 at the University of Applied Sciences, Heilbronn
o In opposition of Bighthubpm.com, this document explains much ore deeply how a milestone plan is used to its fullest!

====Additional links to other wiki-articles with additional and useful information:====
=====WBS=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Work_Breakdown_Structure_(WBS)

=====Gantt=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/The_Gantt_chart_and_the_usage_nowadays

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Gantt_Charts_as_a_Tool_for_Project_Management

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/The_Gantt_Chart

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Gantt_Chart

=====Critical path=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Critical_chain_project_management_(CCPM)

=====Risk management=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Project_Risk_Management_and_Project_Risk_Management_Processes

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Management_of_risk

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Managing_Uncertainty_and_Risk_on_the_Project

File:Milestone top level.gif

2015-09-28T18:59:41Z

S113665:

The best milestone plan is simple but with depths!

2015-09-28T18:57:06Z

S113665:

''Wiki Article:''
''The best milestone plan is simple but with depths''
==Abstract==
The planning part of a project is essential to succeed. The milestone plan is one of the most used planning tools, but also one of the hardest to master! It may seem simple, but many project managers tend to ‘overuse’ milestones as a motivation tool, and therefore adding too many milestones, and labeling every minor task completion as a milestone. This ‘overuse’ often has a negative effect on the team members’ motivation, as it’ll cause loss of luster and distinctiveness, not to mention the time consumption!
That is just one of many mistakes and issues related to milestone planning.

This article will explore and explain the optimal usage of the tool. If done correctly, will the milestone plan act as an enormous motivation tool along with making sure the project is on track and on the way to success.
==Article==
===Big Idea===
A milestone is in its basic form a stone that tells you that you’re one mile down the road. They provide reference points, and are used to reassure travellers that they’re on track and to indicate distance travelled or distance remaining.

In a project a milestone define a completion of something. The only requirement is that the milestone is tied to a quantitative measurement, an internal or external deliverable, or a significant turning point or transition in the project. It is basically an important event marked on a timeline that are recognized when successfully reached.

The Milestone Plan serves as an essential guideline for every project, from big to small. It has a variety of purposes as it shows, how the intermediate products, or deliverables, build towards the final output and therefore gives an important overview. This is much needed, as this overview is required to keep the project under control and to identify upcoming bottlenecks and therefore giving the possibility of taking preventive actions well ahead of the critical point.
The Milestone Plan is furthermore used as motivation tool. A goal and a vision gets the team together going towards the same goal, on the same path, a plan keeps the team on that path, and the Milestone Plan combines these two and adds continuous motivation
It is important to point out that the milestone plan is not to be mistaken for a replacement for any other tools, it is however a strong addition to any project and should never be left out. It can even take care of the entire planning spectrum of a project if done right; keep reading and you’ll soon know why and how!
===Application===
The milestone plan can be made when the project goal and deliverable has been settled and confirmed. It is often even taken in consideration in the fuzzy front end of a project, when negotiations, according to the bid and contract, are made with the customer as the deadlines is coming to an agreement and the plan is being visualized.
Figure 2: Top level Milestone Plan, with the total overview and possibility to go in depths to another more detailed level.
====Setting the milestones====
Placing milestones on the timeline is a difficult task. It is important to have an even plan with the exact amount of time and space between each milestone. This will promote motivation through sub-goals, by giving the team something to strive for. It is important that the milestones are not too far apart as the team members will forget about it, but it is equally important that they’re not too close as you’ll loose interest and not get the feeling of achieving something as too many minor events are celebrated.
For example, if you’re constructing a car, you don’t need to celebrate the delivery of a bolt for the wheel. Yet it would be a nice thing to celebrate when the wheels are on the car!
A good rule is to have 10% of the total project time duration between each milestone. It should, however, never exceed a 2-week interval to have the continuous motivation.

It is therefore important to define prober milestones for your specific project.
====Define a milestone====
Before you create the timeline with your events you need to determine what kind of milestones you want to “celebrate” and what kind of milestones that makes sense for your project.

Milestones can be grouped under several classifications and each defines an event in its own kind.

▪ Phase transitions occur when the project goes from one phase to another. For example if a product goes from designing to construction a prototype (from software to hardware). You can basically divide phase transitions into six stages: information gathering, or marketing research, planning, design, development, testing, and delivery. Each transition from one stage to another is a viable milestone!

• Rates of total completion are commonly used milestones when the project involves repetition without sequential advancement to the next stage. A good example is a training exercise in which milestones are set for the percentage of employees fully trained or certified, e.g., 25, 50, 75, and 100 percent. This gives the benefits of giving a clearer understanding of the process of the project and understandable by all stakeholders regarding their involvement.

• Performance recognition milestones are achievements that are not directly connected to the advancement of the project, but recognize the quality of the work performed. For example, in the construction of a plant, a typical milestone would be to recognize periodically that employees have logged in a certain number of work hours without a single safety incident.

• Deliverables represents tangible evidence of progress towards the project’s goals. It is therefore a commonly used milestone, as it is also easy to determine. It is by far the most popular choice for a milestone because it represents tangible evidence of progress towards the project's goals.

• Task completion has its resembles with deliverables but define a completion of a specific task. A task milestone could be the completion of the roof on a building, and another to finish the plumbing and so on. This is easy applicable and gives a great overview of the project, not as easy interpreted as the ‘rates of completion’ milestone though, but provides more opportunities regarding the degree of details. It is of great understanding used internal in a project.

A perfect plan for motivation contains some of everything!

You will also need to keep in mind, that milestones needs to be somehow challenging and carry a degree of risk for failure. This is done to inspire your team members to stay motivated and feel a greater sense of accomplishment.
====Creating the plan====
Now that the preferable milestones have been set on the start-to-finish-timeline, you will need to determine the degree of details for each milestone shown on the plan. This is however the part that is hard to master and very time-consuming. It is important to get the right level of details for the user, but not too much as the plan will loose its ability to provide the golden overview.
The overlook of the milestone plan needs the exact amount of information valid to that specific user/reader.
The best Milestone Plan can fit onto a single page!
[[File:Gantt2.jpg|700px|thumb|Figure 3: Milestone Plan made in cooperation with the Gantt-chart method.]]

Large and complex projects often needs more than one Milestone Plan, as a single plan might not satisfy all the planning needs on the strategic level. In this case “Subsidiary milestone plans” are used. Each Milestone on the master plan goes into a Milestone Plan of its own in a deeper level.
For example there is a master Milestone Plan for a car itself, with milestones such as having the chassis made, installing the engine and so on. When a stakeholder is looking on the master plan to see when the wheels are getting fitted, they don’t care about the subsidiary milestone of the tire getting fitted to the rim. This is however a milestone on the next level, the deeper version only containing milestones for the wheel itself.
This way of doing Milestone Plans is made by incorporating the WBS (Work-Breakdown-Structure)– with each level and string acting as a subsidiary milestone plan.
====Basic how-to====
Here’s a step-by-step how-to guide of the basics regarding a Milestone Plan.

# Determine start and end date and set up the timeline.
# Define the audience and balance the “plan-level” accordingly.
# Define milestones worth “celebrating”.
## Keep in mind to choose milestones that complements the recommended time interval and the audience.
# Insert the chosen milestones to the timeline and put in relevant details for each milestone.
# Mind the critical path!
### Add buffers if needed to counteract for unforeseen risks and time delays.
# Supplement the milestones with relevant data.
Now all you need to do is to take a step back and enjoy your newfound golden overview!
===Limitations===
Looking at bigger projects, for example delivery-projects as constructions of all sorts, buildings, ships, it does, of course, has to be a unique production as it would otherwise just be a factory task. It might seem “simple” to create the Milestone plan in these conditions, as you have the goals set, and a contract defined. A contract often contains specific dates where deliverables needs to be delivered and a logic order for when tasks needs to be done. It is here you’ll see the biggest advantages of the Milestone Plan but also the biggest pitfalls. You will have an overload of information and data and possible milestones to keep track of, and of course that is why a Milestone Plan is needed, but to create that plan out of all the data, you need to master the critical path and proper risk management as well as choosing the suitable milestones and appropriate timeline. It is important that the plan can adapt to unforeseen events, without having to redo the entire thing.

Milestones are used to monitor a progress, but there are drawbacks and limitations to their effectiveness. Milestones focus primarily on the progress of the critical path, and can therefore neglect non-critical activities. Resources are therefore focused on the critical activities and even moved from non-critical activities to critical ones to ensure that milestones are met. This can provide a false impression that a project is on schedule even though some activities are being ignored.

===Annotated bibliography===
• http://www.brighthubpm.com/project-planning/68427-successful-project-milestone-planning/
o Brighthubpm.com has some well-explained articles of basic milestone planning along with many other interesting articles regarding project management!

• http://www.brighthubpm.com/project-planning/68429-project-planning-typical-milestones/
o Another great, basic, article from Brighthubpm.com that gives examples of typical milestones.

• http://www.brighthubpm.com/templates-forms/128506-milestone-templates-for-excel-/?cid=parsely_rec
o Yet another article from Bighthubpm.com. This one is with and about templates for milestone planning! Gives some great and free tools for milestone planning.

• “Milestone Planning” Prepared by: Jörg Aldinger, IBIS 8 Matr. 152028 at the University of Applied Sciences, Heilbronn
o In opposition of Bighthubpm.com, this document explains much ore deeply how a milestone plan is used to its fullest!

====Additional links to other wiki-articles with additional and useful information:====
=====WBS=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Work_Breakdown_Structure_(WBS)

=====Gantt=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/The_Gantt_chart_and_the_usage_nowadays

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Gantt_Charts_as_a_Tool_for_Project_Management

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/The_Gantt_Chart

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Gantt_Chart

=====Critical path=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Critical_chain_project_management_(CCPM)

=====Risk management=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Project_Risk_Management_and_Project_Risk_Management_Processes

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Management_of_risk

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Managing_Uncertainty_and_Risk_on_the_Project

The best milestone plan is simple but with depths!

2015-09-28T18:55:34Z

S113665:

''Wiki Article:''
''The best milestone plan is simple but with depths''
==Abstract==
The planning part of a project is essential to succeed. The milestone plan is one of the most used planning tools, but also one of the hardest to master! It may seem simple, but many project managers tend to ‘overuse’ milestones as a motivation tool, and therefore adding too many milestones, and labeling every minor task completion as a milestone. This ‘overuse’ often has a negative effect on the team members’ motivation, as it’ll cause loss of luster and distinctiveness, not to mention the time consumption!
That is just one of many mistakes and issues related to milestone planning.

This article will explore and explain the optimal usage of the tool. If done correctly, will the milestone plan act as an enormous motivation tool along with making sure the project is on track and on the way to success.
==Article==
===Big Idea===
A milestone is in its basic form a stone that tells you that you’re one mile down the road. They provide reference points, and are used to reassure travellers that they’re on track and to indicate distance travelled or distance remaining.

In a project a milestone define a completion of something. The only requirement is that the milestone is tied to a quantitative measurement, an internal or external deliverable, or a significant turning point or transition in the project. It is basically an important event marked on a timeline that are recognized when successfully reached.

The Milestone Plan serves as an essential guideline for every project, from big to small. It has a variety of purposes as it shows, how the intermediate products, or deliverables, build towards the final output and therefore gives an important overview. This is much needed, as this overview is required to keep the project under control and to identify upcoming bottlenecks and therefore giving the possibility of taking preventive actions well ahead of the critical point.
The Milestone Plan is furthermore used as motivation tool. A goal and a vision gets the team together going towards the same goal, on the same path, a plan keeps the team on that path, and the Milestone Plan combines these two and adds continuous motivation
It is important to point out that the milestone plan is not to be mistaken for a replacement for any other tools, it is however a strong addition to any project and should never be left out. It can even take care of the entire planning spectrum of a project if done right; keep reading and you’ll soon know why and how!
===Application===
The milestone plan can be made when the project goal and deliverable has been settled and confirmed. It is often even taken in consideration in the fuzzy front end of a project, when negotiations, according to the bid and contract, are made with the customer as the deadlines is coming to an agreement and the plan is being visualized.
Figure 2: Top level Milestone Plan, with the total overview and possibility to go in depths to another more detailed level.
====Setting the milestones====
Placing milestones on the timeline is a difficult task. It is important to have an even plan with the exact amount of time and space between each milestone. This will promote motivation through sub-goals, by giving the team something to strive for. It is important that the milestones are not too far apart as the team members will forget about it, but it is equally important that they’re not too close as you’ll loose interest and not get the feeling of achieving something as too many minor events are celebrated.
For example, if you’re constructing a car, you don’t need to celebrate the delivery of a bolt for the wheel. Yet it would be a nice thing to celebrate when the wheels are on the car!
A good rule is to have 10% of the total project time duration between each milestone. It should, however, never exceed a 2-week interval to have the continuous motivation.

It is therefore important to define prober milestones for your specific project.
====Define a milestone====
Before you create the timeline with your events you need to determine what kind of milestones you want to “celebrate” and what kind of milestones that makes sense for your project.

Milestones can be grouped under several classifications and each defines an event in its own kind.

▪ Phase transitions occur when the project goes from one phase to another. For example if a product goes from designing to construction a prototype (from software to hardware). You can basically divide phase transitions into six stages: information gathering, or marketing research, planning, design, development, testing, and delivery. Each transition from one stage to another is a viable milestone!

• Rates of total completion are commonly used milestones when the project involves repetition without sequential advancement to the next stage. A good example is a training exercise in which milestones are set for the percentage of employees fully trained or certified, e.g., 25, 50, 75, and 100 percent. This gives the benefits of giving a clearer understanding of the process of the project and understandable by all stakeholders regarding their involvement.

• Performance recognition milestones are achievements that are not directly connected to the advancement of the project, but recognize the quality of the work performed. For example, in the construction of a plant, a typical milestone would be to recognize periodically that employees have logged in a certain number of work hours without a single safety incident.

• Deliverables represents tangible evidence of progress towards the project’s goals. It is therefore a commonly used milestone, as it is also easy to determine. It is by far the most popular choice for a milestone because it represents tangible evidence of progress towards the project's goals.

• Task completion has its resembles with deliverables but define a completion of a specific task. A task milestone could be the completion of the roof on a building, and another to finish the plumbing and so on. This is easy applicable and gives a great overview of the project, not as easy interpreted as the ‘rates of completion’ milestone though, but provides more opportunities regarding the degree of details. It is of great understanding used internal in a project.

A perfect plan for motivation contains some of everything!

You will also need to keep in mind, that milestones needs to be somehow challenging and carry a degree of risk for failure. This is done to inspire your team members to stay motivated and feel a greater sense of accomplishment.
====Creating the plan====
Now that the preferable milestones have been set on the start-to-finish-timeline, you will need to determine the degree of details for each milestone shown on the plan. This is however the part that is hard to master and very time-consuming. It is important to get the right level of details for the user, but not too much as the plan will loose its ability to provide the golden overview.
The overlook of the milestone plan needs the exact amount of information valid to that specific user/reader.
The best Milestone Plan can fit onto a single page!
[[File:Gantt2.jpg|500px|border|Figure 3: Milestone Plan made in cooperation with the Gantt-chart method.]]

Large and complex projects often needs more than one Milestone Plan, as a single plan might not satisfy all the planning needs on the strategic level. In this case “Subsidiary milestone plans” are used. Each Milestone on the master plan goes into a Milestone Plan of its own in a deeper level.
For example there is a master Milestone Plan for a car itself, with milestones such as having the chassis made, installing the engine and so on. When a stakeholder is looking on the master plan to see when the wheels are getting fitted, they don’t care about the subsidiary milestone of the tire getting fitted to the rim. This is however a milestone on the next level, the deeper version only containing milestones for the wheel itself.
This way of doing Milestone Plans is made by incorporating the WBS (Work-Breakdown-Structure)– with each level and string acting as a subsidiary milestone plan.
====Basic how-to====
Here’s a step-by-step how-to guide of the basics regarding a Milestone Plan.

# Determine start and end date and set up the timeline.
# Define the audience and balance the “plan-level” accordingly.
# Define milestones worth “celebrating”.
## Keep in mind to choose milestones that complements the recommended time interval and the audience.
# Insert the chosen milestones to the timeline and put in relevant details for each milestone.
# Mind the critical path!
### Add buffers if needed to counteract for unforeseen risks and time delays.
# Supplement the milestones with relevant data.
Now all you need to do is to take a step back and enjoy your newfound golden overview!
===Limitations===
Looking at bigger projects, for example delivery-projects as constructions of all sorts, buildings, ships, it does, of course, has to be a unique production as it would otherwise just be a factory task. It might seem “simple” to create the Milestone plan in these conditions, as you have the goals set, and a contract defined. A contract often contains specific dates where deliverables needs to be delivered and a logic order for when tasks needs to be done. It is here you’ll see the biggest advantages of the Milestone Plan but also the biggest pitfalls. You will have an overload of information and data and possible milestones to keep track of, and of course that is why a Milestone Plan is needed, but to create that plan out of all the data, you need to master the critical path and proper risk management as well as choosing the suitable milestones and appropriate timeline. It is important that the plan can adapt to unforeseen events, without having to redo the entire thing.

Milestones are used to monitor a progress, but there are drawbacks and limitations to their effectiveness. Milestones focus primarily on the progress of the critical path, and can therefore neglect non-critical activities. Resources are therefore focused on the critical activities and even moved from non-critical activities to critical ones to ensure that milestones are met. This can provide a false impression that a project is on schedule even though some activities are being ignored.

===Annotated bibliography===
• http://www.brighthubpm.com/project-planning/68427-successful-project-milestone-planning/
o Brighthubpm.com has some well-explained articles of basic milestone planning along with many other interesting articles regarding project management!

• http://www.brighthubpm.com/project-planning/68429-project-planning-typical-milestones/
o Another great, basic, article from Brighthubpm.com that gives examples of typical milestones.

• http://www.brighthubpm.com/templates-forms/128506-milestone-templates-for-excel-/?cid=parsely_rec
o Yet another article from Bighthubpm.com. This one is with and about templates for milestone planning! Gives some great and free tools for milestone planning.

• “Milestone Planning” Prepared by: Jörg Aldinger, IBIS 8 Matr. 152028 at the University of Applied Sciences, Heilbronn
o In opposition of Bighthubpm.com, this document explains much ore deeply how a milestone plan is used to its fullest!

====Additional links to other wiki-articles with additional and useful information:====
=====WBS=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Work_Breakdown_Structure_(WBS)

=====Gantt=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/The_Gantt_chart_and_the_usage_nowadays

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Gantt_Charts_as_a_Tool_for_Project_Management

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/The_Gantt_Chart

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Gantt_Chart

=====Critical path=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Critical_chain_project_management_(CCPM)

=====Risk management=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Project_Risk_Management_and_Project_Risk_Management_Processes

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Management_of_risk

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Managing_Uncertainty_and_Risk_on_the_Project

The best milestone plan is simple but with depths!

2015-09-28T18:54:40Z

S113665:

''Wiki Article:''
''The best milestone plan is simple but with depths''
==Abstract==
The planning part of a project is essential to succeed. The milestone plan is one of the most used planning tools, but also one of the hardest to master! It may seem simple, but many project managers tend to ‘overuse’ milestones as a motivation tool, and therefore adding too many milestones, and labeling every minor task completion as a milestone. This ‘overuse’ often has a negative effect on the team members’ motivation, as it’ll cause loss of luster and distinctiveness, not to mention the time consumption!
That is just one of many mistakes and issues related to milestone planning.

This article will explore and explain the optimal usage of the tool. If done correctly, will the milestone plan act as an enormous motivation tool along with making sure the project is on track and on the way to success.
==Article==
===Big Idea===
A milestone is in its basic form a stone that tells you that you’re one mile down the road. They provide reference points, and are used to reassure travellers that they’re on track and to indicate distance travelled or distance remaining.

In a project a milestone define a completion of something. The only requirement is that the milestone is tied to a quantitative measurement, an internal or external deliverable, or a significant turning point or transition in the project. It is basically an important event marked on a timeline that are recognized when successfully reached.

The Milestone Plan serves as an essential guideline for every project, from big to small. It has a variety of purposes as it shows, how the intermediate products, or deliverables, build towards the final output and therefore gives an important overview. This is much needed, as this overview is required to keep the project under control and to identify upcoming bottlenecks and therefore giving the possibility of taking preventive actions well ahead of the critical point.
The Milestone Plan is furthermore used as motivation tool. A goal and a vision gets the team together going towards the same goal, on the same path, a plan keeps the team on that path, and the Milestone Plan combines these two and adds continuous motivation
It is important to point out that the milestone plan is not to be mistaken for a replacement for any other tools, it is however a strong addition to any project and should never be left out. It can even take care of the entire planning spectrum of a project if done right; keep reading and you’ll soon know why and how!
===Application===
The milestone plan can be made when the project goal and deliverable has been settled and confirmed. It is often even taken in consideration in the fuzzy front end of a project, when negotiations, according to the bid and contract, are made with the customer as the deadlines is coming to an agreement and the plan is being visualized.
Figure 2: Top level Milestone Plan, with the total overview and possibility to go in depths to another more detailed level.
====Setting the milestones====
Placing milestones on the timeline is a difficult task. It is important to have an even plan with the exact amount of time and space between each milestone. This will promote motivation through sub-goals, by giving the team something to strive for. It is important that the milestones are not too far apart as the team members will forget about it, but it is equally important that they’re not too close as you’ll loose interest and not get the feeling of achieving something as too many minor events are celebrated.
For example, if you’re constructing a car, you don’t need to celebrate the delivery of a bolt for the wheel. Yet it would be a nice thing to celebrate when the wheels are on the car!
A good rule is to have 10% of the total project time duration between each milestone. It should, however, never exceed a 2-week interval to have the continuous motivation.

It is therefore important to define prober milestones for your specific project.
====Define a milestone====
Before you create the timeline with your events you need to determine what kind of milestones you want to “celebrate” and what kind of milestones that makes sense for your project.

Milestones can be grouped under several classifications and each defines an event in its own kind.

▪ Phase transitions occur when the project goes from one phase to another. For example if a product goes from designing to construction a prototype (from software to hardware). You can basically divide phase transitions into six stages: information gathering, or marketing research, planning, design, development, testing, and delivery. Each transition from one stage to another is a viable milestone!

• Rates of total completion are commonly used milestones when the project involves repetition without sequential advancement to the next stage. A good example is a training exercise in which milestones are set for the percentage of employees fully trained or certified, e.g., 25, 50, 75, and 100 percent. This gives the benefits of giving a clearer understanding of the process of the project and understandable by all stakeholders regarding their involvement.

• Performance recognition milestones are achievements that are not directly connected to the advancement of the project, but recognize the quality of the work performed. For example, in the construction of a plant, a typical milestone would be to recognize periodically that employees have logged in a certain number of work hours without a single safety incident.

• Deliverables represents tangible evidence of progress towards the project’s goals. It is therefore a commonly used milestone, as it is also easy to determine. It is by far the most popular choice for a milestone because it represents tangible evidence of progress towards the project's goals.

• Task completion has its resembles with deliverables but define a completion of a specific task. A task milestone could be the completion of the roof on a building, and another to finish the plumbing and so on. This is easy applicable and gives a great overview of the project, not as easy interpreted as the ‘rates of completion’ milestone though, but provides more opportunities regarding the degree of details. It is of great understanding used internal in a project.

A perfect plan for motivation contains some of everything!

You will also need to keep in mind, that milestones needs to be somehow challenging and carry a degree of risk for failure. This is done to inspire your team members to stay motivated and feel a greater sense of accomplishment.
====Creating the plan====
Now that the preferable milestones have been set on the start-to-finish-timeline, you will need to determine the degree of details for each milestone shown on the plan. This is however the part that is hard to master and very time-consuming. It is important to get the right level of details for the user, but not too much as the plan will loose its ability to provide the golden overview.
The overlook of the milestone plan needs the exact amount of information valid to that specific user/reader.
The best Milestone Plan can fit onto a single page!
[[File:Gantt2.jpg|border|Figure 3: Milestone Plan made in cooperation with the Gantt-chart method.]]

Large and complex projects often needs more than one Milestone Plan, as a single plan might not satisfy all the planning needs on the strategic level. In this case “Subsidiary milestone plans” are used. Each Milestone on the master plan goes into a Milestone Plan of its own in a deeper level.
For example there is a master Milestone Plan for a car itself, with milestones such as having the chassis made, installing the engine and so on. When a stakeholder is looking on the master plan to see when the wheels are getting fitted, they don’t care about the subsidiary milestone of the tire getting fitted to the rim. This is however a milestone on the next level, the deeper version only containing milestones for the wheel itself.
This way of doing Milestone Plans is made by incorporating the WBS (Work-Breakdown-Structure)– with each level and string acting as a subsidiary milestone plan.
====Basic how-to====
Here’s a step-by-step how-to guide of the basics regarding a Milestone Plan.

# Determine start and end date and set up the timeline.
# Define the audience and balance the “plan-level” accordingly.
# Define milestones worth “celebrating”.
## Keep in mind to choose milestones that complements the recommended time interval and the audience.
# Insert the chosen milestones to the timeline and put in relevant details for each milestone.
# Mind the critical path!
### Add buffers if needed to counteract for unforeseen risks and time delays.
# Supplement the milestones with relevant data.
Now all you need to do is to take a step back and enjoy your newfound golden overview!
===Limitations===
Looking at bigger projects, for example delivery-projects as constructions of all sorts, buildings, ships, it does, of course, has to be a unique production as it would otherwise just be a factory task. It might seem “simple” to create the Milestone plan in these conditions, as you have the goals set, and a contract defined. A contract often contains specific dates where deliverables needs to be delivered and a logic order for when tasks needs to be done. It is here you’ll see the biggest advantages of the Milestone Plan but also the biggest pitfalls. You will have an overload of information and data and possible milestones to keep track of, and of course that is why a Milestone Plan is needed, but to create that plan out of all the data, you need to master the critical path and proper risk management as well as choosing the suitable milestones and appropriate timeline. It is important that the plan can adapt to unforeseen events, without having to redo the entire thing.

Milestones are used to monitor a progress, but there are drawbacks and limitations to their effectiveness. Milestones focus primarily on the progress of the critical path, and can therefore neglect non-critical activities. Resources are therefore focused on the critical activities and even moved from non-critical activities to critical ones to ensure that milestones are met. This can provide a false impression that a project is on schedule even though some activities are being ignored.

===Annotated bibliography===
• http://www.brighthubpm.com/project-planning/68427-successful-project-milestone-planning/
o Brighthubpm.com has some well-explained articles of basic milestone planning along with many other interesting articles regarding project management!

• http://www.brighthubpm.com/project-planning/68429-project-planning-typical-milestones/
o Another great, basic, article from Brighthubpm.com that gives examples of typical milestones.

• http://www.brighthubpm.com/templates-forms/128506-milestone-templates-for-excel-/?cid=parsely_rec
o Yet another article from Bighthubpm.com. This one is with and about templates for milestone planning! Gives some great and free tools for milestone planning.

• “Milestone Planning” Prepared by: Jörg Aldinger, IBIS 8 Matr. 152028 at the University of Applied Sciences, Heilbronn
o In opposition of Bighthubpm.com, this document explains much ore deeply how a milestone plan is used to its fullest!

====Additional links to other wiki-articles with additional and useful information:====
=====WBS=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Work_Breakdown_Structure_(WBS)

=====Gantt=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/The_Gantt_chart_and_the_usage_nowadays

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Gantt_Charts_as_a_Tool_for_Project_Management

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/The_Gantt_Chart

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Gantt_Chart

=====Critical path=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Critical_chain_project_management_(CCPM)

=====Risk management=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Project_Risk_Management_and_Project_Risk_Management_Processes

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Management_of_risk

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Managing_Uncertainty_and_Risk_on_the_Project

The best milestone plan is simple but with depths!

2015-09-28T18:53:58Z

S113665:

''Wiki Article:''
''The best milestone plan is simple but with depths''
==Abstract==
The planning part of a project is essential to succeed. The milestone plan is one of the most used planning tools, but also one of the hardest to master! It may seem simple, but many project managers tend to ‘overuse’ milestones as a motivation tool, and therefore adding too many milestones, and labeling every minor task completion as a milestone. This ‘overuse’ often has a negative effect on the team members’ motivation, as it’ll cause loss of luster and distinctiveness, not to mention the time consumption!
That is just one of many mistakes and issues related to milestone planning.

This article will explore and explain the optimal usage of the tool. If done correctly, will the milestone plan act as an enormous motivation tool along with making sure the project is on track and on the way to success.
==Article==
===Big Idea===
A milestone is in its basic form a stone that tells you that you’re one mile down the road. They provide reference points, and are used to reassure travellers that they’re on track and to indicate distance travelled or distance remaining.

In a project a milestone define a completion of something. The only requirement is that the milestone is tied to a quantitative measurement, an internal or external deliverable, or a significant turning point or transition in the project. It is basically an important event marked on a timeline that are recognized when successfully reached.

The Milestone Plan serves as an essential guideline for every project, from big to small. It has a variety of purposes as it shows, how the intermediate products, or deliverables, build towards the final output and therefore gives an important overview. This is much needed, as this overview is required to keep the project under control and to identify upcoming bottlenecks and therefore giving the possibility of taking preventive actions well ahead of the critical point.
The Milestone Plan is furthermore used as motivation tool. A goal and a vision gets the team together going towards the same goal, on the same path, a plan keeps the team on that path, and the Milestone Plan combines these two and adds continuous motivation
It is important to point out that the milestone plan is not to be mistaken for a replacement for any other tools, it is however a strong addition to any project and should never be left out. It can even take care of the entire planning spectrum of a project if done right; keep reading and you’ll soon know why and how!
===Application===
The milestone plan can be made when the project goal and deliverable has been settled and confirmed. It is often even taken in consideration in the fuzzy front end of a project, when negotiations, according to the bid and contract, are made with the customer as the deadlines is coming to an agreement and the plan is being visualized.
Figure 2: Top level Milestone Plan, with the total overview and possibility to go in depths to another more detailed level.
====Setting the milestones====
Placing milestones on the timeline is a difficult task. It is important to have an even plan with the exact amount of time and space between each milestone. This will promote motivation through sub-goals, by giving the team something to strive for. It is important that the milestones are not too far apart as the team members will forget about it, but it is equally important that they’re not too close as you’ll loose interest and not get the feeling of achieving something as too many minor events are celebrated.
For example, if you’re constructing a car, you don’t need to celebrate the delivery of a bolt for the wheel. Yet it would be a nice thing to celebrate when the wheels are on the car!
A good rule is to have 10% of the total project time duration between each milestone. It should, however, never exceed a 2-week interval to have the continuous motivation.

It is therefore important to define prober milestones for your specific project.
====Define a milestone====
Before you create the timeline with your events you need to determine what kind of milestones you want to “celebrate” and what kind of milestones that makes sense for your project.

Milestones can be grouped under several classifications and each defines an event in its own kind.

▪ Phase transitions occur when the project goes from one phase to another. For example if a product goes from designing to construction a prototype (from software to hardware). You can basically divide phase transitions into six stages: information gathering, or marketing research, planning, design, development, testing, and delivery. Each transition from one stage to another is a viable milestone!

• Rates of total completion are commonly used milestones when the project involves repetition without sequential advancement to the next stage. A good example is a training exercise in which milestones are set for the percentage of employees fully trained or certified, e.g., 25, 50, 75, and 100 percent. This gives the benefits of giving a clearer understanding of the process of the project and understandable by all stakeholders regarding their involvement.

• Performance recognition milestones are achievements that are not directly connected to the advancement of the project, but recognize the quality of the work performed. For example, in the construction of a plant, a typical milestone would be to recognize periodically that employees have logged in a certain number of work hours without a single safety incident.

• Deliverables represents tangible evidence of progress towards the project’s goals. It is therefore a commonly used milestone, as it is also easy to determine. It is by far the most popular choice for a milestone because it represents tangible evidence of progress towards the project's goals.

• Task completion has its resembles with deliverables but define a completion of a specific task. A task milestone could be the completion of the roof on a building, and another to finish the plumbing and so on. This is easy applicable and gives a great overview of the project, not as easy interpreted as the ‘rates of completion’ milestone though, but provides more opportunities regarding the degree of details. It is of great understanding used internal in a project.

A perfect plan for motivation contains some of everything!

You will also need to keep in mind, that milestones needs to be somehow challenging and carry a degree of risk for failure. This is done to inspire your team members to stay motivated and feel a greater sense of accomplishment.
====Creating the plan====
Now that the preferable milestones have been set on the start-to-finish-timeline, you will need to determine the degree of details for each milestone shown on the plan. This is however the part that is hard to master and very time-consuming. It is important to get the right level of details for the user, but not too much as the plan will loose its ability to provide the golden overview.
The overlook of the milestone plan needs the exact amount of information valid to that specific user/reader.
The best Milestone Plan can fit onto a single page!
Figure 3: Milestone Plan made in cooperation with the Gantt-chart method.

Large and complex projects often needs more than one Milestone Plan, as a single plan might not satisfy all the planning needs on the strategic level. In this case “Subsidiary milestone plans” are used. Each Milestone on the master plan goes into a Milestone Plan of its own in a deeper level.
For example there is a master Milestone Plan for a car itself, with milestones such as having the chassis made, installing the engine and so on. When a stakeholder is looking on the master plan to see when the wheels are getting fitted, they don’t care about the subsidiary milestone of the tire getting fitted to the rim. This is however a milestone on the next level, the deeper version only containing milestones for the wheel itself.
This way of doing Milestone Plans is made by incorporating the WBS (Work-Breakdown-Structure)– with each level and string acting as a subsidiary milestone plan.
[[File:Gantt2.jpg|border|50px|Figure 3: Milestone Plan made in cooperation with the Gantt-chart method.]]
====Basic how-to====
Here’s a step-by-step how-to guide of the basics regarding a Milestone Plan.

# Determine start and end date and set up the timeline.
# Define the audience and balance the “plan-level” accordingly.
# Define milestones worth “celebrating”.
## Keep in mind to choose milestones that complements the recommended time interval and the audience.
# Insert the chosen milestones to the timeline and put in relevant details for each milestone.
# Mind the critical path!
### Add buffers if needed to counteract for unforeseen risks and time delays.
# Supplement the milestones with relevant data.
Now all you need to do is to take a step back and enjoy your newfound golden overview!
===Limitations===
Looking at bigger projects, for example delivery-projects as constructions of all sorts, buildings, ships, it does, of course, has to be a unique production as it would otherwise just be a factory task. It might seem “simple” to create the Milestone plan in these conditions, as you have the goals set, and a contract defined. A contract often contains specific dates where deliverables needs to be delivered and a logic order for when tasks needs to be done. It is here you’ll see the biggest advantages of the Milestone Plan but also the biggest pitfalls. You will have an overload of information and data and possible milestones to keep track of, and of course that is why a Milestone Plan is needed, but to create that plan out of all the data, you need to master the critical path and proper risk management as well as choosing the suitable milestones and appropriate timeline. It is important that the plan can adapt to unforeseen events, without having to redo the entire thing.

Milestones are used to monitor a progress, but there are drawbacks and limitations to their effectiveness. Milestones focus primarily on the progress of the critical path, and can therefore neglect non-critical activities. Resources are therefore focused on the critical activities and even moved from non-critical activities to critical ones to ensure that milestones are met. This can provide a false impression that a project is on schedule even though some activities are being ignored.

===Annotated bibliography===
• http://www.brighthubpm.com/project-planning/68427-successful-project-milestone-planning/
o Brighthubpm.com has some well-explained articles of basic milestone planning along with many other interesting articles regarding project management!

• http://www.brighthubpm.com/project-planning/68429-project-planning-typical-milestones/
o Another great, basic, article from Brighthubpm.com that gives examples of typical milestones.

• http://www.brighthubpm.com/templates-forms/128506-milestone-templates-for-excel-/?cid=parsely_rec
o Yet another article from Bighthubpm.com. This one is with and about templates for milestone planning! Gives some great and free tools for milestone planning.

• “Milestone Planning” Prepared by: Jörg Aldinger, IBIS 8 Matr. 152028 at the University of Applied Sciences, Heilbronn
o In opposition of Bighthubpm.com, this document explains much ore deeply how a milestone plan is used to its fullest!

====Additional links to other wiki-articles with additional and useful information:====
=====WBS=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Work_Breakdown_Structure_(WBS)

=====Gantt=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/The_Gantt_chart_and_the_usage_nowadays

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Gantt_Charts_as_a_Tool_for_Project_Management

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/The_Gantt_Chart

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Gantt_Chart

=====Critical path=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Critical_chain_project_management_(CCPM)

=====Risk management=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Project_Risk_Management_and_Project_Risk_Management_Processes

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Management_of_risk

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Managing_Uncertainty_and_Risk_on_the_Project

The best milestone plan is simple but with depths!

2015-09-28T18:52:06Z

S113665:

''Wiki Article:''
''The best milestone plan is simple but with depths''
==Abstract==
The planning part of a project is essential to succeed. The milestone plan is one of the most used planning tools, but also one of the hardest to master! It may seem simple, but many project managers tend to ‘overuse’ milestones as a motivation tool, and therefore adding too many milestones, and labeling every minor task completion as a milestone. This ‘overuse’ often has a negative effect on the team members’ motivation, as it’ll cause loss of luster and distinctiveness, not to mention the time consumption!
That is just one of many mistakes and issues related to milestone planning.

This article will explore and explain the optimal usage of the tool. If done correctly, will the milestone plan act as an enormous motivation tool along with making sure the project is on track and on the way to success.
==Article==
===Big Idea===
A milestone is in its basic form a stone that tells you that you’re one mile down the road. They provide reference points, and are used to reassure travellers that they’re on track and to indicate distance travelled or distance remaining.

In a project a milestone define a completion of something. The only requirement is that the milestone is tied to a quantitative measurement, an internal or external deliverable, or a significant turning point or transition in the project. It is basically an important event marked on a timeline that are recognized when successfully reached.

The Milestone Plan serves as an essential guideline for every project, from big to small. It has a variety of purposes as it shows, how the intermediate products, or deliverables, build towards the final output and therefore gives an important overview. This is much needed, as this overview is required to keep the project under control and to identify upcoming bottlenecks and therefore giving the possibility of taking preventive actions well ahead of the critical point.
The Milestone Plan is furthermore used as motivation tool. A goal and a vision gets the team together going towards the same goal, on the same path, a plan keeps the team on that path, and the Milestone Plan combines these two and adds continuous motivation
It is important to point out that the milestone plan is not to be mistaken for a replacement for any other tools, it is however a strong addition to any project and should never be left out. It can even take care of the entire planning spectrum of a project if done right; keep reading and you’ll soon know why and how!
===Application===
The milestone plan can be made when the project goal and deliverable has been settled and confirmed. It is often even taken in consideration in the fuzzy front end of a project, when negotiations, according to the bid and contract, are made with the customer as the deadlines is coming to an agreement and the plan is being visualized.
Figure 2: Top level Milestone Plan, with the total overview and possibility to go in depths to another more detailed level.
====Setting the milestones====
Placing milestones on the timeline is a difficult task. It is important to have an even plan with the exact amount of time and space between each milestone. This will promote motivation through sub-goals, by giving the team something to strive for. It is important that the milestones are not too far apart as the team members will forget about it, but it is equally important that they’re not too close as you’ll loose interest and not get the feeling of achieving something as too many minor events are celebrated.
For example, if you’re constructing a car, you don’t need to celebrate the delivery of a bolt for the wheel. Yet it would be a nice thing to celebrate when the wheels are on the car!
A good rule is to have 10% of the total project time duration between each milestone. It should, however, never exceed a 2-week interval to have the continuous motivation.

It is therefore important to define prober milestones for your specific project.
====Define a milestone====
Before you create the timeline with your events you need to determine what kind of milestones you want to “celebrate” and what kind of milestones that makes sense for your project.

Milestones can be grouped under several classifications and each defines an event in its own kind.

▪ Phase transitions occur when the project goes from one phase to another. For example if a product goes from designing to construction a prototype (from software to hardware). You can basically divide phase transitions into six stages: information gathering, or marketing research, planning, design, development, testing, and delivery. Each transition from one stage to another is a viable milestone!

• Rates of total completion are commonly used milestones when the project involves repetition without sequential advancement to the next stage. A good example is a training exercise in which milestones are set for the percentage of employees fully trained or certified, e.g., 25, 50, 75, and 100 percent. This gives the benefits of giving a clearer understanding of the process of the project and understandable by all stakeholders regarding their involvement.

• Performance recognition milestones are achievements that are not directly connected to the advancement of the project, but recognize the quality of the work performed. For example, in the construction of a plant, a typical milestone would be to recognize periodically that employees have logged in a certain number of work hours without a single safety incident.

• Deliverables represents tangible evidence of progress towards the project’s goals. It is therefore a commonly used milestone, as it is also easy to determine. It is by far the most popular choice for a milestone because it represents tangible evidence of progress towards the project's goals.

• Task completion has its resembles with deliverables but define a completion of a specific task. A task milestone could be the completion of the roof on a building, and another to finish the plumbing and so on. This is easy applicable and gives a great overview of the project, not as easy interpreted as the ‘rates of completion’ milestone though, but provides more opportunities regarding the degree of details. It is of great understanding used internal in a project.

A perfect plan for motivation contains some of everything!

You will also need to keep in mind, that milestones needs to be somehow challenging and carry a degree of risk for failure. This is done to inspire your team members to stay motivated and feel a greater sense of accomplishment.
====Creating the plan====
Now that the preferable milestones have been set on the start-to-finish-timeline, you will need to determine the degree of details for each milestone shown on the plan. This is however the part that is hard to master and very time-consuming. It is important to get the right level of details for the user, but not too much as the plan will loose its ability to provide the golden overview.
The overlook of the milestone plan needs the exact amount of information valid to that specific user/reader.
The best Milestone Plan can fit onto a single page!
Figure 3: Milestone Plan made in cooperation with the Gantt-chart method.

Large and complex projects often needs more than one Milestone Plan, as a single plan might not satisfy all the planning needs on the strategic level. In this case “Subsidiary milestone plans” are used. Each Milestone on the master plan goes into a Milestone Plan of its own in a deeper level.
For example there is a master Milestone Plan for a car itself, with milestones such as having the chassis made, installing the engine and so on. When a stakeholder is looking on the master plan to see when the wheels are getting fitted, they don’t care about the subsidiary milestone of the tire getting fitted to the rim. This is however a milestone on the next level, the deeper version only containing milestones for the wheel itself.
This way of doing Milestone Plans is made by incorporating the WBS (Work-Breakdown-Structure)– with each level and string acting as a subsidiary milestone plan.
[[File:Gantt2.jpg|frame|50px|Figure 3: Milestone Plan made in cooperation with the Gantt-chart method.]]
====Basic how-to====
Here’s a step-by-step how-to guide of the basics regarding a Milestone Plan.

# Determine start and end date and set up the timeline.
# Define the audience and balance the “plan-level” accordingly.
# Define milestones worth “celebrating”.
## Keep in mind to choose milestones that complements the recommended time interval and the audience.
# Insert the chosen milestones to the timeline and put in relevant details for each milestone.
# Mind the critical path!
### Add buffers if needed to counteract for unforeseen risks and time delays.
# Supplement the milestones with relevant data.
Now all you need to do is to take a step back and enjoy your newfound golden overview!
===Limitations===
Looking at bigger projects, for example delivery-projects as constructions of all sorts, buildings, ships, it does, of course, has to be a unique production as it would otherwise just be a factory task. It might seem “simple” to create the Milestone plan in these conditions, as you have the goals set, and a contract defined. A contract often contains specific dates where deliverables needs to be delivered and a logic order for when tasks needs to be done. It is here you’ll see the biggest advantages of the Milestone Plan but also the biggest pitfalls. You will have an overload of information and data and possible milestones to keep track of, and of course that is why a Milestone Plan is needed, but to create that plan out of all the data, you need to master the critical path and proper risk management as well as choosing the suitable milestones and appropriate timeline. It is important that the plan can adapt to unforeseen events, without having to redo the entire thing.

Milestones are used to monitor a progress, but there are drawbacks and limitations to their effectiveness. Milestones focus primarily on the progress of the critical path, and can therefore neglect non-critical activities. Resources are therefore focused on the critical activities and even moved from non-critical activities to critical ones to ensure that milestones are met. This can provide a false impression that a project is on schedule even though some activities are being ignored.

===Annotated bibliography===
• http://www.brighthubpm.com/project-planning/68427-successful-project-milestone-planning/
o Brighthubpm.com has some well-explained articles of basic milestone planning along with many other interesting articles regarding project management!

• http://www.brighthubpm.com/project-planning/68429-project-planning-typical-milestones/
o Another great, basic, article from Brighthubpm.com that gives examples of typical milestones.

• http://www.brighthubpm.com/templates-forms/128506-milestone-templates-for-excel-/?cid=parsely_rec
o Yet another article from Bighthubpm.com. This one is with and about templates for milestone planning! Gives some great and free tools for milestone planning.

• “Milestone Planning” Prepared by: Jörg Aldinger, IBIS 8 Matr. 152028 at the University of Applied Sciences, Heilbronn
o In opposition of Bighthubpm.com, this document explains much ore deeply how a milestone plan is used to its fullest!

====Additional links to other wiki-articles with additional and useful information:====
=====WBS=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Work_Breakdown_Structure_(WBS)

=====Gantt=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/The_Gantt_chart_and_the_usage_nowadays

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Gantt_Charts_as_a_Tool_for_Project_Management

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/The_Gantt_Chart

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Gantt_Chart

=====Critical path=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Critical_chain_project_management_(CCPM)

=====Risk management=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Project_Risk_Management_and_Project_Risk_Management_Processes

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Management_of_risk

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Managing_Uncertainty_and_Risk_on_the_Project

The best milestone plan is simple but with depths!

2015-09-28T18:48:12Z

S113665:

''Wiki Article:''
''The best milestone plan is simple but with depths''
==Abstract==
The planning part of a project is essential to succeed. The milestone plan is one of the most used planning tools, but also one of the hardest to master! It may seem simple, but many project managers tend to ‘overuse’ milestones as a motivation tool, and therefore adding too many milestones, and labeling every minor task completion as a milestone. This ‘overuse’ often has a negative effect on the team members’ motivation, as it’ll cause loss of luster and distinctiveness, not to mention the time consumption!
That is just one of many mistakes and issues related to milestone planning.

This article will explore and explain the optimal usage of the tool. If done correctly, will the milestone plan act as an enormous motivation tool along with making sure the project is on track and on the way to success.
==Article==
===Big Idea===
A milestone is in its basic form a stone that tells you that you’re one mile down the road. They provide reference points, and are used to reassure travellers that they’re on track and to indicate distance travelled or distance remaining.

In a project a milestone define a completion of something. The only requirement is that the milestone is tied to a quantitative measurement, an internal or external deliverable, or a significant turning point or transition in the project. It is basically an important event marked on a timeline that are recognized when successfully reached.

The Milestone Plan serves as an essential guideline for every project, from big to small. It has a variety of purposes as it shows, how the intermediate products, or deliverables, build towards the final output and therefore gives an important overview. This is much needed, as this overview is required to keep the project under control and to identify upcoming bottlenecks and therefore giving the possibility of taking preventive actions well ahead of the critical point.
The Milestone Plan is furthermore used as motivation tool. A goal and a vision gets the team together going towards the same goal, on the same path, a plan keeps the team on that path, and the Milestone Plan combines these two and adds continuous motivation
It is important to point out that the milestone plan is not to be mistaken for a replacement for any other tools, it is however a strong addition to any project and should never be left out. It can even take care of the entire planning spectrum of a project if done right; keep reading and you’ll soon know why and how!
===Application===
The milestone plan can be made when the project goal and deliverable has been settled and confirmed. It is often even taken in consideration in the fuzzy front end of a project, when negotiations, according to the bid and contract, are made with the customer as the deadlines is coming to an agreement and the plan is being visualized.
Figure 2: Top level Milestone Plan, with the total overview and possibility to go in depths to another more detailed level.
====Setting the milestones====
Placing milestones on the timeline is a difficult task. It is important to have an even plan with the exact amount of time and space between each milestone. This will promote motivation through sub-goals, by giving the team something to strive for. It is important that the milestones are not too far apart as the team members will forget about it, but it is equally important that they’re not too close as you’ll loose interest and not get the feeling of achieving something as too many minor events are celebrated.
For example, if you’re constructing a car, you don’t need to celebrate the delivery of a bolt for the wheel. Yet it would be a nice thing to celebrate when the wheels are on the car!
A good rule is to have 10% of the total project time duration between each milestone. It should, however, never exceed a 2-week interval to have the continuous motivation.

It is therefore important to define prober milestones for your specific project.
====Define a milestone====
Before you create the timeline with your events you need to determine what kind of milestones you want to “celebrate” and what kind of milestones that makes sense for your project.

Milestones can be grouped under several classifications and each defines an event in its own kind.

▪ Phase transitions occur when the project goes from one phase to another. For example if a product goes from designing to construction a prototype (from software to hardware). You can basically divide phase transitions into six stages: information gathering, or marketing research, planning, design, development, testing, and delivery. Each transition from one stage to another is a viable milestone!

• Rates of total completion are commonly used milestones when the project involves repetition without sequential advancement to the next stage. A good example is a training exercise in which milestones are set for the percentage of employees fully trained or certified, e.g., 25, 50, 75, and 100 percent. This gives the benefits of giving a clearer understanding of the process of the project and understandable by all stakeholders regarding their involvement.

• Performance recognition milestones are achievements that are not directly connected to the advancement of the project, but recognize the quality of the work performed. For example, in the construction of a plant, a typical milestone would be to recognize periodically that employees have logged in a certain number of work hours without a single safety incident.

• Deliverables represents tangible evidence of progress towards the project’s goals. It is therefore a commonly used milestone, as it is also easy to determine. It is by far the most popular choice for a milestone because it represents tangible evidence of progress towards the project's goals.

• Task completion has its resembles with deliverables but define a completion of a specific task. A task milestone could be the completion of the roof on a building, and another to finish the plumbing and so on. This is easy applicable and gives a great overview of the project, not as easy interpreted as the ‘rates of completion’ milestone though, but provides more opportunities regarding the degree of details. It is of great understanding used internal in a project.

A perfect plan for motivation contains some of everything!

You will also need to keep in mind, that milestones needs to be somehow challenging and carry a degree of risk for failure. This is done to inspire your team members to stay motivated and feel a greater sense of accomplishment.
====Creating the plan====
Now that the preferable milestones have been set on the start-to-finish-timeline, you will need to determine the degree of details for each milestone shown on the plan. This is however the part that is hard to master and very time-consuming. It is important to get the right level of details for the user, but not too much as the plan will loose its ability to provide the golden overview.
The overlook of the milestone plan needs the exact amount of information valid to that specific user/reader.
The best Milestone Plan can fit onto a single page!
Figure 3: Milestone Plan made in cooperation with the Gantt-chart method.

Large and complex projects often needs more than one Milestone Plan, as a single plan might not satisfy all the planning needs on the strategic level. In this case “Subsidiary milestone plans” are used. Each Milestone on the master plan goes into a Milestone Plan of its own in a deeper level.
For example there is a master Milestone Plan for a car itself, with milestones such as having the chassis made, installing the engine and so on. When a stakeholder is looking on the master plan to see when the wheels are getting fitted, they don’t care about the subsidiary milestone of the tire getting fitted to the rim. This is however a milestone on the next level, the deeper version only containing milestones for the wheel itself.
This way of doing Milestone Plans is made by incorporating the WBS (Work-Breakdown-Structure)– with each level and string acting as a subsidiary milestone plan.
[[File:Gantt2.jpg|frame|Figure 3: Milestone Plan made in cooperation with the Gantt-chart method.|50px]]
====Basic how-to====
Here’s a step-by-step how-to guide of the basics regarding a Milestone Plan.

# Determine start and end date and set up the timeline.
# Define the audience and balance the “plan-level” accordingly.
# Define milestones worth “celebrating”.
## Keep in mind to choose milestones that complements the recommended time interval and the audience.
# Insert the chosen milestones to the timeline and put in relevant details for each milestone.
# Mind the critical path!
### Add buffers if needed to counteract for unforeseen risks and time delays.
# Supplement the milestones with relevant data.
Now all you need to do is to take a step back and enjoy your newfound golden overview!
===Limitations===
Looking at bigger projects, for example delivery-projects as constructions of all sorts, buildings, ships, it does, of course, has to be a unique production as it would otherwise just be a factory task. It might seem “simple” to create the Milestone plan in these conditions, as you have the goals set, and a contract defined. A contract often contains specific dates where deliverables needs to be delivered and a logic order for when tasks needs to be done. It is here you’ll see the biggest advantages of the Milestone Plan but also the biggest pitfalls. You will have an overload of information and data and possible milestones to keep track of, and of course that is why a Milestone Plan is needed, but to create that plan out of all the data, you need to master the critical path and proper risk management as well as choosing the suitable milestones and appropriate timeline. It is important that the plan can adapt to unforeseen events, without having to redo the entire thing.

Milestones are used to monitor a progress, but there are drawbacks and limitations to their effectiveness. Milestones focus primarily on the progress of the critical path, and can therefore neglect non-critical activities. Resources are therefore focused on the critical activities and even moved from non-critical activities to critical ones to ensure that milestones are met. This can provide a false impression that a project is on schedule even though some activities are being ignored.

===Annotated bibliography===
• http://www.brighthubpm.com/project-planning/68427-successful-project-milestone-planning/
o Brighthubpm.com has some well-explained articles of basic milestone planning along with many other interesting articles regarding project management!

• http://www.brighthubpm.com/project-planning/68429-project-planning-typical-milestones/
o Another great, basic, article from Brighthubpm.com that gives examples of typical milestones.

• http://www.brighthubpm.com/templates-forms/128506-milestone-templates-for-excel-/?cid=parsely_rec
o Yet another article from Bighthubpm.com. This one is with and about templates for milestone planning! Gives some great and free tools for milestone planning.

• “Milestone Planning” Prepared by: Jörg Aldinger, IBIS 8 Matr. 152028 at the University of Applied Sciences, Heilbronn
o In opposition of Bighthubpm.com, this document explains much ore deeply how a milestone plan is used to its fullest!

====Additional links to other wiki-articles with additional and useful information:====
=====WBS=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Work_Breakdown_Structure_(WBS)

=====Gantt=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/The_Gantt_chart_and_the_usage_nowadays

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Gantt_Charts_as_a_Tool_for_Project_Management

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/The_Gantt_Chart

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Gantt_Chart

=====Critical path=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Critical_chain_project_management_(CCPM)

=====Risk management=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Project_Risk_Management_and_Project_Risk_Management_Processes

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Management_of_risk

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Managing_Uncertainty_and_Risk_on_the_Project

The best milestone plan is simple but with depths!

2015-09-28T18:47:09Z

S113665:

''Wiki Article:''
''The best milestone plan is simple but with depths''
==Abstract==
The planning part of a project is essential to succeed. The milestone plan is one of the most used planning tools, but also one of the hardest to master! It may seem simple, but many project managers tend to ‘overuse’ milestones as a motivation tool, and therefore adding too many milestones, and labeling every minor task completion as a milestone. This ‘overuse’ often has a negative effect on the team members’ motivation, as it’ll cause loss of luster and distinctiveness, not to mention the time consumption!
That is just one of many mistakes and issues related to milestone planning.

This article will explore and explain the optimal usage of the tool. If done correctly, will the milestone plan act as an enormous motivation tool along with making sure the project is on track and on the way to success.
==Article==
===Big Idea===
A milestone is in its basic form a stone that tells you that you’re one mile down the road. They provide reference points, and are used to reassure travellers that they’re on track and to indicate distance travelled or distance remaining.

In a project a milestone define a completion of something. The only requirement is that the milestone is tied to a quantitative measurement, an internal or external deliverable, or a significant turning point or transition in the project. It is basically an important event marked on a timeline that are recognized when successfully reached.

The Milestone Plan serves as an essential guideline for every project, from big to small. It has a variety of purposes as it shows, how the intermediate products, or deliverables, build towards the final output and therefore gives an important overview. This is much needed, as this overview is required to keep the project under control and to identify upcoming bottlenecks and therefore giving the possibility of taking preventive actions well ahead of the critical point.
The Milestone Plan is furthermore used as motivation tool. A goal and a vision gets the team together going towards the same goal, on the same path, a plan keeps the team on that path, and the Milestone Plan combines these two and adds continuous motivation
It is important to point out that the milestone plan is not to be mistaken for a replacement for any other tools, it is however a strong addition to any project and should never be left out. It can even take care of the entire planning spectrum of a project if done right; keep reading and you’ll soon know why and how!
===Application===
The milestone plan can be made when the project goal and deliverable has been settled and confirmed. It is often even taken in consideration in the fuzzy front end of a project, when negotiations, according to the bid and contract, are made with the customer as the deadlines is coming to an agreement and the plan is being visualized.
Figure 2: Top level Milestone Plan, with the total overview and possibility to go in depths to another more detailed level.
====Setting the milestones====
Placing milestones on the timeline is a difficult task. It is important to have an even plan with the exact amount of time and space between each milestone. This will promote motivation through sub-goals, by giving the team something to strive for. It is important that the milestones are not too far apart as the team members will forget about it, but it is equally important that they’re not too close as you’ll loose interest and not get the feeling of achieving something as too many minor events are celebrated.
For example, if you’re constructing a car, you don’t need to celebrate the delivery of a bolt for the wheel. Yet it would be a nice thing to celebrate when the wheels are on the car!
A good rule is to have 10% of the total project time duration between each milestone. It should, however, never exceed a 2-week interval to have the continuous motivation.

It is therefore important to define prober milestones for your specific project.
====Define a milestone====
Before you create the timeline with your events you need to determine what kind of milestones you want to “celebrate” and what kind of milestones that makes sense for your project.

Milestones can be grouped under several classifications and each defines an event in its own kind.

▪ Phase transitions occur when the project goes from one phase to another. For example if a product goes from designing to construction a prototype (from software to hardware). You can basically divide phase transitions into six stages: information gathering, or marketing research, planning, design, development, testing, and delivery. Each transition from one stage to another is a viable milestone!

• Rates of total completion are commonly used milestones when the project involves repetition without sequential advancement to the next stage. A good example is a training exercise in which milestones are set for the percentage of employees fully trained or certified, e.g., 25, 50, 75, and 100 percent. This gives the benefits of giving a clearer understanding of the process of the project and understandable by all stakeholders regarding their involvement.

• Performance recognition milestones are achievements that are not directly connected to the advancement of the project, but recognize the quality of the work performed. For example, in the construction of a plant, a typical milestone would be to recognize periodically that employees have logged in a certain number of work hours without a single safety incident.

• Deliverables represents tangible evidence of progress towards the project’s goals. It is therefore a commonly used milestone, as it is also easy to determine. It is by far the most popular choice for a milestone because it represents tangible evidence of progress towards the project's goals.

• Task completion has its resembles with deliverables but define a completion of a specific task. A task milestone could be the completion of the roof on a building, and another to finish the plumbing and so on. This is easy applicable and gives a great overview of the project, not as easy interpreted as the ‘rates of completion’ milestone though, but provides more opportunities regarding the degree of details. It is of great understanding used internal in a project.

A perfect plan for motivation contains some of everything!

You will also need to keep in mind, that milestones needs to be somehow challenging and carry a degree of risk for failure. This is done to inspire your team members to stay motivated and feel a greater sense of accomplishment.
====Creating the plan====
Now that the preferable milestones have been set on the start-to-finish-timeline, you will need to determine the degree of details for each milestone shown on the plan. This is however the part that is hard to master and very time-consuming. It is important to get the right level of details for the user, but not too much as the plan will loose its ability to provide the golden overview.
The overlook of the milestone plan needs the exact amount of information valid to that specific user/reader.
The best Milestone Plan can fit onto a single page!
Figure 3: Milestone Plan made in cooperation with the Gantt-chart method.

Large and complex projects often needs more than one Milestone Plan, as a single plan might not satisfy all the planning needs on the strategic level. In this case “Subsidiary milestone plans” are used. Each Milestone on the master plan goes into a Milestone Plan of its own in a deeper level.
For example there is a master Milestone Plan for a car itself, with milestones such as having the chassis made, installing the engine and so on. When a stakeholder is looking on the master plan to see when the wheels are getting fitted, they don’t care about the subsidiary milestone of the tire getting fitted to the rim. This is however a milestone on the next level, the deeper version only containing milestones for the wheel itself.
This way of doing Milestone Plans is made by incorporating the WBS (Work-Breakdown-Structure)– with each level and string acting as a subsidiary milestone plan.
[[File:Gantt2.jpg|50px|frame|Figure 3: Milestone Plan made in cooperation with the Gantt-chart method.]]
====Basic how-to====
Here’s a step-by-step how-to guide of the basics regarding a Milestone Plan.

# Determine start and end date and set up the timeline.
# Define the audience and balance the “plan-level” accordingly.
# Define milestones worth “celebrating”.
## Keep in mind to choose milestones that complements the recommended time interval and the audience.
# Insert the chosen milestones to the timeline and put in relevant details for each milestone.
# Mind the critical path!
### Add buffers if needed to counteract for unforeseen risks and time delays.
# Supplement the milestones with relevant data.
Now all you need to do is to take a step back and enjoy your newfound golden overview!
===Limitations===
Looking at bigger projects, for example delivery-projects as constructions of all sorts, buildings, ships, it does, of course, has to be a unique production as it would otherwise just be a factory task. It might seem “simple” to create the Milestone plan in these conditions, as you have the goals set, and a contract defined. A contract often contains specific dates where deliverables needs to be delivered and a logic order for when tasks needs to be done. It is here you’ll see the biggest advantages of the Milestone Plan but also the biggest pitfalls. You will have an overload of information and data and possible milestones to keep track of, and of course that is why a Milestone Plan is needed, but to create that plan out of all the data, you need to master the critical path and proper risk management as well as choosing the suitable milestones and appropriate timeline. It is important that the plan can adapt to unforeseen events, without having to redo the entire thing.

Milestones are used to monitor a progress, but there are drawbacks and limitations to their effectiveness. Milestones focus primarily on the progress of the critical path, and can therefore neglect non-critical activities. Resources are therefore focused on the critical activities and even moved from non-critical activities to critical ones to ensure that milestones are met. This can provide a false impression that a project is on schedule even though some activities are being ignored.

===Annotated bibliography===
• http://www.brighthubpm.com/project-planning/68427-successful-project-milestone-planning/
o Brighthubpm.com has some well-explained articles of basic milestone planning along with many other interesting articles regarding project management!

• http://www.brighthubpm.com/project-planning/68429-project-planning-typical-milestones/
o Another great, basic, article from Brighthubpm.com that gives examples of typical milestones.

• http://www.brighthubpm.com/templates-forms/128506-milestone-templates-for-excel-/?cid=parsely_rec
o Yet another article from Bighthubpm.com. This one is with and about templates for milestone planning! Gives some great and free tools for milestone planning.

• “Milestone Planning” Prepared by: Jörg Aldinger, IBIS 8 Matr. 152028 at the University of Applied Sciences, Heilbronn
o In opposition of Bighthubpm.com, this document explains much ore deeply how a milestone plan is used to its fullest!

====Additional links to other wiki-articles with additional and useful information:====
=====WBS=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Work_Breakdown_Structure_(WBS)

=====Gantt=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/The_Gantt_chart_and_the_usage_nowadays

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Gantt_Charts_as_a_Tool_for_Project_Management

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/The_Gantt_Chart

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Gantt_Chart

=====Critical path=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Critical_chain_project_management_(CCPM)

=====Risk management=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Project_Risk_Management_and_Project_Risk_Management_Processes

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Management_of_risk

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Managing_Uncertainty_and_Risk_on_the_Project

The best milestone plan is simple but with depths!

2015-09-28T18:45:02Z

S113665:

''Wiki Article:''
''The best milestone plan is simple but with depths''
==Abstract==
The planning part of a project is essential to succeed. The milestone plan is one of the most used planning tools, but also one of the hardest to master! It may seem simple, but many project managers tend to ‘overuse’ milestones as a motivation tool, and therefore adding too many milestones, and labeling every minor task completion as a milestone. This ‘overuse’ often has a negative effect on the team members’ motivation, as it’ll cause loss of luster and distinctiveness, not to mention the time consumption!
That is just one of many mistakes and issues related to milestone planning.

This article will explore and explain the optimal usage of the tool. If done correctly, will the milestone plan act as an enormous motivation tool along with making sure the project is on track and on the way to success.
==Article==
===Big Idea===
A milestone is in its basic form a stone that tells you that you’re one mile down the road. They provide reference points, and are used to reassure travellers that they’re on track and to indicate distance travelled or distance remaining.

In a project a milestone define a completion of something. The only requirement is that the milestone is tied to a quantitative measurement, an internal or external deliverable, or a significant turning point or transition in the project. It is basically an important event marked on a timeline that are recognized when successfully reached.

The Milestone Plan serves as an essential guideline for every project, from big to small. It has a variety of purposes as it shows, how the intermediate products, or deliverables, build towards the final output and therefore gives an important overview. This is much needed, as this overview is required to keep the project under control and to identify upcoming bottlenecks and therefore giving the possibility of taking preventive actions well ahead of the critical point.
The Milestone Plan is furthermore used as motivation tool. A goal and a vision gets the team together going towards the same goal, on the same path, a plan keeps the team on that path, and the Milestone Plan combines these two and adds continuous motivation
It is important to point out that the milestone plan is not to be mistaken for a replacement for any other tools, it is however a strong addition to any project and should never be left out. It can even take care of the entire planning spectrum of a project if done right; keep reading and you’ll soon know why and how!
===Application===
The milestone plan can be made when the project goal and deliverable has been settled and confirmed. It is often even taken in consideration in the fuzzy front end of a project, when negotiations, according to the bid and contract, are made with the customer as the deadlines is coming to an agreement and the plan is being visualized.
Figure 2: Top level Milestone Plan, with the total overview and possibility to go in depths to another more detailed level.
====Setting the milestones====
Placing milestones on the timeline is a difficult task. It is important to have an even plan with the exact amount of time and space between each milestone. This will promote motivation through sub-goals, by giving the team something to strive for. It is important that the milestones are not too far apart as the team members will forget about it, but it is equally important that they’re not too close as you’ll loose interest and not get the feeling of achieving something as too many minor events are celebrated.
For example, if you’re constructing a car, you don’t need to celebrate the delivery of a bolt for the wheel. Yet it would be a nice thing to celebrate when the wheels are on the car!
A good rule is to have 10% of the total project time duration between each milestone. It should, however, never exceed a 2-week interval to have the continuous motivation.

It is therefore important to define prober milestones for your specific project.
====Define a milestone====
Before you create the timeline with your events you need to determine what kind of milestones you want to “celebrate” and what kind of milestones that makes sense for your project.

Milestones can be grouped under several classifications and each defines an event in its own kind.

▪ Phase transitions occur when the project goes from one phase to another. For example if a product goes from designing to construction a prototype (from software to hardware). You can basically divide phase transitions into six stages: information gathering, or marketing research, planning, design, development, testing, and delivery. Each transition from one stage to another is a viable milestone!

• Rates of total completion are commonly used milestones when the project involves repetition without sequential advancement to the next stage. A good example is a training exercise in which milestones are set for the percentage of employees fully trained or certified, e.g., 25, 50, 75, and 100 percent. This gives the benefits of giving a clearer understanding of the process of the project and understandable by all stakeholders regarding their involvement.

• Performance recognition milestones are achievements that are not directly connected to the advancement of the project, but recognize the quality of the work performed. For example, in the construction of a plant, a typical milestone would be to recognize periodically that employees have logged in a certain number of work hours without a single safety incident.

• Deliverables represents tangible evidence of progress towards the project’s goals. It is therefore a commonly used milestone, as it is also easy to determine. It is by far the most popular choice for a milestone because it represents tangible evidence of progress towards the project's goals.

• Task completion has its resembles with deliverables but define a completion of a specific task. A task milestone could be the completion of the roof on a building, and another to finish the plumbing and so on. This is easy applicable and gives a great overview of the project, not as easy interpreted as the ‘rates of completion’ milestone though, but provides more opportunities regarding the degree of details. It is of great understanding used internal in a project.

A perfect plan for motivation contains some of everything!

You will also need to keep in mind, that milestones needs to be somehow challenging and carry a degree of risk for failure. This is done to inspire your team members to stay motivated and feel a greater sense of accomplishment.
====Creating the plan====
Now that the preferable milestones have been set on the start-to-finish-timeline, you will need to determine the degree of details for each milestone shown on the plan. This is however the part that is hard to master and very time-consuming. It is important to get the right level of details for the user, but not too much as the plan will loose its ability to provide the golden overview.
The overlook of the milestone plan needs the exact amount of information valid to that specific user/reader.
The best Milestone Plan can fit onto a single page!
Figure 3: Milestone Plan made in cooperation with the Gantt-chart method.

Large and complex projects often needs more than one Milestone Plan, as a single plan might not satisfy all the planning needs on the strategic level. In this case “Subsidiary milestone plans” are used. Each Milestone on the master plan goes into a Milestone Plan of its own in a deeper level.
For example there is a master Milestone Plan for a car itself, with milestones such as having the chassis made, installing the engine and so on. When a stakeholder is looking on the master plan to see when the wheels are getting fitted, they don’t care about the subsidiary milestone of the tire getting fitted to the rim. This is however a milestone on the next level, the deeper version only containing milestones for the wheel itself.
This way of doing Milestone Plans is made by incorporating the WBS (Work-Breakdown-Structure)– with each level and string acting as a subsidiary milestone plan.
[[File:Gantt2.jpg|200px|frame|Figure 3: Milestone Plan made in cooperation with the Gantt-chart method.]]
====Basic how-to====
Here’s a step-by-step how-to guide of the basics regarding a Milestone Plan.

# Determine start and end date and set up the timeline.
# Define the audience and balance the “plan-level” accordingly.
# Define milestones worth “celebrating”.
## Keep in mind to choose milestones that complements the recommended time interval and the audience.
# Insert the chosen milestones to the timeline and put in relevant details for each milestone.
# Mind the critical path!
### Add buffers if needed to counteract for unforeseen risks and time delays.
# Supplement the milestones with relevant data.
Now all you need to do is to take a step back and enjoy your newfound golden overview!
===Limitations===
Looking at bigger projects, for example delivery-projects as constructions of all sorts, buildings, ships, it does, of course, has to be a unique production as it would otherwise just be a factory task. It might seem “simple” to create the Milestone plan in these conditions, as you have the goals set, and a contract defined. A contract often contains specific dates where deliverables needs to be delivered and a logic order for when tasks needs to be done. It is here you’ll see the biggest advantages of the Milestone Plan but also the biggest pitfalls. You will have an overload of information and data and possible milestones to keep track of, and of course that is why a Milestone Plan is needed, but to create that plan out of all the data, you need to master the critical path and proper risk management as well as choosing the suitable milestones and appropriate timeline. It is important that the plan can adapt to unforeseen events, without having to redo the entire thing.

Milestones are used to monitor a progress, but there are drawbacks and limitations to their effectiveness. Milestones focus primarily on the progress of the critical path, and can therefore neglect non-critical activities. Resources are therefore focused on the critical activities and even moved from non-critical activities to critical ones to ensure that milestones are met. This can provide a false impression that a project is on schedule even though some activities are being ignored.

===Annotated bibliography===
• http://www.brighthubpm.com/project-planning/68427-successful-project-milestone-planning/
o Brighthubpm.com has some well-explained articles of basic milestone planning along with many other interesting articles regarding project management!

• http://www.brighthubpm.com/project-planning/68429-project-planning-typical-milestones/
o Another great, basic, article from Brighthubpm.com that gives examples of typical milestones.

• http://www.brighthubpm.com/templates-forms/128506-milestone-templates-for-excel-/?cid=parsely_rec
o Yet another article from Bighthubpm.com. This one is with and about templates for milestone planning! Gives some great and free tools for milestone planning.

• “Milestone Planning” Prepared by: Jörg Aldinger, IBIS 8 Matr. 152028 at the University of Applied Sciences, Heilbronn
o In opposition of Bighthubpm.com, this document explains much ore deeply how a milestone plan is used to its fullest!

====Additional links to other wiki-articles with additional and useful information:====
=====WBS=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Work_Breakdown_Structure_(WBS)

=====Gantt=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/The_Gantt_chart_and_the_usage_nowadays

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Gantt_Charts_as_a_Tool_for_Project_Management

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/The_Gantt_Chart

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Gantt_Chart

=====Critical path=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Critical_chain_project_management_(CCPM)

=====Risk management=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Project_Risk_Management_and_Project_Risk_Management_Processes

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Management_of_risk

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Managing_Uncertainty_and_Risk_on_the_Project

The best milestone plan is simple but with depths!

2015-09-28T18:43:25Z

S113665:

''Wiki Article:''
''The best milestone plan is simple but with depths''
==Abstract==
The planning part of a project is essential to succeed. The milestone plan is one of the most used planning tools, but also one of the hardest to master! It may seem simple, but many project managers tend to ‘overuse’ milestones as a motivation tool, and therefore adding too many milestones, and labeling every minor task completion as a milestone. This ‘overuse’ often has a negative effect on the team members’ motivation, as it’ll cause loss of luster and distinctiveness, not to mention the time consumption!
That is just one of many mistakes and issues related to milestone planning.

This article will explore and explain the optimal usage of the tool. If done correctly, will the milestone plan act as an enormous motivation tool along with making sure the project is on track and on the way to success.
==Article==
===Big Idea===
A milestone is in its basic form a stone that tells you that you’re one mile down the road. They provide reference points, and are used to reassure travellers that they’re on track and to indicate distance travelled or distance remaining.

In a project a milestone define a completion of something. The only requirement is that the milestone is tied to a quantitative measurement, an internal or external deliverable, or a significant turning point or transition in the project. It is basically an important event marked on a timeline that are recognized when successfully reached.

The Milestone Plan serves as an essential guideline for every project, from big to small. It has a variety of purposes as it shows, how the intermediate products, or deliverables, build towards the final output and therefore gives an important overview. This is much needed, as this overview is required to keep the project under control and to identify upcoming bottlenecks and therefore giving the possibility of taking preventive actions well ahead of the critical point.
The Milestone Plan is furthermore used as motivation tool. A goal and a vision gets the team together going towards the same goal, on the same path, a plan keeps the team on that path, and the Milestone Plan combines these two and adds continuous motivation
It is important to point out that the milestone plan is not to be mistaken for a replacement for any other tools, it is however a strong addition to any project and should never be left out. It can even take care of the entire planning spectrum of a project if done right; keep reading and you’ll soon know why and how!
===Application===
The milestone plan can be made when the project goal and deliverable has been settled and confirmed. It is often even taken in consideration in the fuzzy front end of a project, when negotiations, according to the bid and contract, are made with the customer as the deadlines is coming to an agreement and the plan is being visualized.
Figure 2: Top level Milestone Plan, with the total overview and possibility to go in depths to another more detailed level.
====Setting the milestones====
Placing milestones on the timeline is a difficult task. It is important to have an even plan with the exact amount of time and space between each milestone. This will promote motivation through sub-goals, by giving the team something to strive for. It is important that the milestones are not too far apart as the team members will forget about it, but it is equally important that they’re not too close as you’ll loose interest and not get the feeling of achieving something as too many minor events are celebrated.
For example, if you’re constructing a car, you don’t need to celebrate the delivery of a bolt for the wheel. Yet it would be a nice thing to celebrate when the wheels are on the car!
A good rule is to have 10% of the total project time duration between each milestone. It should, however, never exceed a 2-week interval to have the continuous motivation.

It is therefore important to define prober milestones for your specific project.
====Define a milestone====
Before you create the timeline with your events you need to determine what kind of milestones you want to “celebrate” and what kind of milestones that makes sense for your project.

Milestones can be grouped under several classifications and each defines an event in its own kind.

▪ Phase transitions occur when the project goes from one phase to another. For example if a product goes from designing to construction a prototype (from software to hardware). You can basically divide phase transitions into six stages: information gathering, or marketing research, planning, design, development, testing, and delivery. Each transition from one stage to another is a viable milestone!

• Rates of total completion are commonly used milestones when the project involves repetition without sequential advancement to the next stage. A good example is a training exercise in which milestones are set for the percentage of employees fully trained or certified, e.g., 25, 50, 75, and 100 percent. This gives the benefits of giving a clearer understanding of the process of the project and understandable by all stakeholders regarding their involvement.

• Performance recognition milestones are achievements that are not directly connected to the advancement of the project, but recognize the quality of the work performed. For example, in the construction of a plant, a typical milestone would be to recognize periodically that employees have logged in a certain number of work hours without a single safety incident.

• Deliverables represents tangible evidence of progress towards the project’s goals. It is therefore a commonly used milestone, as it is also easy to determine. It is by far the most popular choice for a milestone because it represents tangible evidence of progress towards the project's goals.

• Task completion has its resembles with deliverables but define a completion of a specific task. A task milestone could be the completion of the roof on a building, and another to finish the plumbing and so on. This is easy applicable and gives a great overview of the project, not as easy interpreted as the ‘rates of completion’ milestone though, but provides more opportunities regarding the degree of details. It is of great understanding used internal in a project.

A perfect plan for motivation contains some of everything!

You will also need to keep in mind, that milestones needs to be somehow challenging and carry a degree of risk for failure. This is done to inspire your team members to stay motivated and feel a greater sense of accomplishment.
====Creating the plan====
Now that the preferable milestones have been set on the start-to-finish-timeline, you will need to determine the degree of details for each milestone shown on the plan. This is however the part that is hard to master and very time-consuming. It is important to get the right level of details for the user, but not too much as the plan will loose its ability to provide the golden overview.
The overlook of the milestone plan needs the exact amount of information valid to that specific user/reader.
The best Milestone Plan can fit onto a single page!
Figure 3: Milestone Plan made in cooperation with the Gantt-chart method.

Large and complex projects often needs more than one Milestone Plan, as a single plan might not satisfy all the planning needs on the strategic level. In this case “Subsidiary milestone plans” are used. Each Milestone on the master plan goes into a Milestone Plan of its own in a deeper level.
For example there is a master Milestone Plan for a car itself, with milestones such as having the chassis made, installing the engine and so on. When a stakeholder is looking on the master plan to see when the wheels are getting fitted, they don’t care about the subsidiary milestone of the tire getting fitted to the rim. This is however a milestone on the next level, the deeper version only containing milestones for the wheel itself.
This way of doing Milestone Plans is made by incorporating the WBS (Work-Breakdown-Structure)– with each level and string acting as a subsidiary milestone plan.
[[File:Gantt2.jpg|frame|Figure 3: Milestone Plan made in cooperation with the Gantt-chart method.|200px]]
====Basic how-to====
Here’s a step-by-step how-to guide of the basics regarding a Milestone Plan.

# Determine start and end date and set up the timeline.
# Define the audience and balance the “plan-level” accordingly.
# Define milestones worth “celebrating”.
## Keep in mind to choose milestones that complements the recommended time interval and the audience.
# Insert the chosen milestones to the timeline and put in relevant details for each milestone.
# Mind the critical path!
### Add buffers if needed to counteract for unforeseen risks and time delays.
# Supplement the milestones with relevant data.
Now all you need to do is to take a step back and enjoy your newfound golden overview!
===Limitations===
Looking at bigger projects, for example delivery-projects as constructions of all sorts, buildings, ships, it does, of course, has to be a unique production as it would otherwise just be a factory task. It might seem “simple” to create the Milestone plan in these conditions, as you have the goals set, and a contract defined. A contract often contains specific dates where deliverables needs to be delivered and a logic order for when tasks needs to be done. It is here you’ll see the biggest advantages of the Milestone Plan but also the biggest pitfalls. You will have an overload of information and data and possible milestones to keep track of, and of course that is why a Milestone Plan is needed, but to create that plan out of all the data, you need to master the critical path and proper risk management as well as choosing the suitable milestones and appropriate timeline. It is important that the plan can adapt to unforeseen events, without having to redo the entire thing.

Milestones are used to monitor a progress, but there are drawbacks and limitations to their effectiveness. Milestones focus primarily on the progress of the critical path, and can therefore neglect non-critical activities. Resources are therefore focused on the critical activities and even moved from non-critical activities to critical ones to ensure that milestones are met. This can provide a false impression that a project is on schedule even though some activities are being ignored.

===Annotated bibliography===
• http://www.brighthubpm.com/project-planning/68427-successful-project-milestone-planning/
o Brighthubpm.com has some well-explained articles of basic milestone planning along with many other interesting articles regarding project management!

• http://www.brighthubpm.com/project-planning/68429-project-planning-typical-milestones/
o Another great, basic, article from Brighthubpm.com that gives examples of typical milestones.

• http://www.brighthubpm.com/templates-forms/128506-milestone-templates-for-excel-/?cid=parsely_rec
o Yet another article from Bighthubpm.com. This one is with and about templates for milestone planning! Gives some great and free tools for milestone planning.

• “Milestone Planning” Prepared by: Jörg Aldinger, IBIS 8 Matr. 152028 at the University of Applied Sciences, Heilbronn
o In opposition of Bighthubpm.com, this document explains much ore deeply how a milestone plan is used to its fullest!

====Additional links to other wiki-articles with additional and useful information:====
=====WBS=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Work_Breakdown_Structure_(WBS)

=====Gantt=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/The_Gantt_chart_and_the_usage_nowadays

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Gantt_Charts_as_a_Tool_for_Project_Management

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/The_Gantt_Chart

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Gantt_Chart

=====Critical path=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Critical_chain_project_management_(CCPM)

=====Risk management=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Project_Risk_Management_and_Project_Risk_Management_Processes

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Management_of_risk

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Managing_Uncertainty_and_Risk_on_the_Project

The best milestone plan is simple but with depths!

2015-09-28T18:42:19Z

S113665:

''Wiki Article:''
''The best milestone plan is simple but with depths''
==Abstract==
The planning part of a project is essential to succeed. The milestone plan is one of the most used planning tools, but also one of the hardest to master! It may seem simple, but many project managers tend to ‘overuse’ milestones as a motivation tool, and therefore adding too many milestones, and labeling every minor task completion as a milestone. This ‘overuse’ often has a negative effect on the team members’ motivation, as it’ll cause loss of luster and distinctiveness, not to mention the time consumption!
That is just one of many mistakes and issues related to milestone planning.

This article will explore and explain the optimal usage of the tool. If done correctly, will the milestone plan act as an enormous motivation tool along with making sure the project is on track and on the way to success.
==Article==
===Big Idea===
A milestone is in its basic form a stone that tells you that you’re one mile down the road. They provide reference points, and are used to reassure travellers that they’re on track and to indicate distance travelled or distance remaining.

In a project a milestone define a completion of something. The only requirement is that the milestone is tied to a quantitative measurement, an internal or external deliverable, or a significant turning point or transition in the project. It is basically an important event marked on a timeline that are recognized when successfully reached.

The Milestone Plan serves as an essential guideline for every project, from big to small. It has a variety of purposes as it shows, how the intermediate products, or deliverables, build towards the final output and therefore gives an important overview. This is much needed, as this overview is required to keep the project under control and to identify upcoming bottlenecks and therefore giving the possibility of taking preventive actions well ahead of the critical point.
The Milestone Plan is furthermore used as motivation tool. A goal and a vision gets the team together going towards the same goal, on the same path, a plan keeps the team on that path, and the Milestone Plan combines these two and adds continuous motivation
It is important to point out that the milestone plan is not to be mistaken for a replacement for any other tools, it is however a strong addition to any project and should never be left out. It can even take care of the entire planning spectrum of a project if done right; keep reading and you’ll soon know why and how!
===Application===
The milestone plan can be made when the project goal and deliverable has been settled and confirmed. It is often even taken in consideration in the fuzzy front end of a project, when negotiations, according to the bid and contract, are made with the customer as the deadlines is coming to an agreement and the plan is being visualized.
Figure 2: Top level Milestone Plan, with the total overview and possibility to go in depths to another more detailed level.
====Setting the milestones====
Placing milestones on the timeline is a difficult task. It is important to have an even plan with the exact amount of time and space between each milestone. This will promote motivation through sub-goals, by giving the team something to strive for. It is important that the milestones are not too far apart as the team members will forget about it, but it is equally important that they’re not too close as you’ll loose interest and not get the feeling of achieving something as too many minor events are celebrated.
For example, if you’re constructing a car, you don’t need to celebrate the delivery of a bolt for the wheel. Yet it would be a nice thing to celebrate when the wheels are on the car!
A good rule is to have 10% of the total project time duration between each milestone. It should, however, never exceed a 2-week interval to have the continuous motivation.

It is therefore important to define prober milestones for your specific project.
====Define a milestone====
Before you create the timeline with your events you need to determine what kind of milestones you want to “celebrate” and what kind of milestones that makes sense for your project.

Milestones can be grouped under several classifications and each defines an event in its own kind.

▪ Phase transitions occur when the project goes from one phase to another. For example if a product goes from designing to construction a prototype (from software to hardware). You can basically divide phase transitions into six stages: information gathering, or marketing research, planning, design, development, testing, and delivery. Each transition from one stage to another is a viable milestone!

• Rates of total completion are commonly used milestones when the project involves repetition without sequential advancement to the next stage. A good example is a training exercise in which milestones are set for the percentage of employees fully trained or certified, e.g., 25, 50, 75, and 100 percent. This gives the benefits of giving a clearer understanding of the process of the project and understandable by all stakeholders regarding their involvement.

• Performance recognition milestones are achievements that are not directly connected to the advancement of the project, but recognize the quality of the work performed. For example, in the construction of a plant, a typical milestone would be to recognize periodically that employees have logged in a certain number of work hours without a single safety incident.

• Deliverables represents tangible evidence of progress towards the project’s goals. It is therefore a commonly used milestone, as it is also easy to determine. It is by far the most popular choice for a milestone because it represents tangible evidence of progress towards the project's goals.

• Task completion has its resembles with deliverables but define a completion of a specific task. A task milestone could be the completion of the roof on a building, and another to finish the plumbing and so on. This is easy applicable and gives a great overview of the project, not as easy interpreted as the ‘rates of completion’ milestone though, but provides more opportunities regarding the degree of details. It is of great understanding used internal in a project.

A perfect plan for motivation contains some of everything!

You will also need to keep in mind, that milestones needs to be somehow challenging and carry a degree of risk for failure. This is done to inspire your team members to stay motivated and feel a greater sense of accomplishment.
====Creating the plan====
Now that the preferable milestones have been set on the start-to-finish-timeline, you will need to determine the degree of details for each milestone shown on the plan. This is however the part that is hard to master and very time-consuming. It is important to get the right level of details for the user, but not too much as the plan will loose its ability to provide the golden overview.
The overlook of the milestone plan needs the exact amount of information valid to that specific user/reader.
The best Milestone Plan can fit onto a single page!
Figure 3: Milestone Plan made in cooperation with the Gantt-chart method.

Large and complex projects often needs more than one Milestone Plan, as a single plan might not satisfy all the planning needs on the strategic level. In this case “Subsidiary milestone plans” are used. Each Milestone on the master plan goes into a Milestone Plan of its own in a deeper level.
For example there is a master Milestone Plan for a car itself, with milestones such as having the chassis made, installing the engine and so on. When a stakeholder is looking on the master plan to see when the wheels are getting fitted, they don’t care about the subsidiary milestone of the tire getting fitted to the rim. This is however a milestone on the next level, the deeper version only containing milestones for the wheel itself.
This way of doing Milestone Plans is made by incorporating the WBS (Work-Breakdown-Structure)– with each level and string acting as a subsidiary milestone plan.
[[File:Gantt.jpg|frame|caption]]
====Basic how-to====
Here’s a step-by-step how-to guide of the basics regarding a Milestone Plan.

# Determine start and end date and set up the timeline.
# Define the audience and balance the “plan-level” accordingly.
# Define milestones worth “celebrating”.
## Keep in mind to choose milestones that complements the recommended time interval and the audience.
# Insert the chosen milestones to the timeline and put in relevant details for each milestone.
# Mind the critical path!
### Add buffers if needed to counteract for unforeseen risks and time delays.
# Supplement the milestones with relevant data.
Now all you need to do is to take a step back and enjoy your newfound golden overview!
===Limitations===
Looking at bigger projects, for example delivery-projects as constructions of all sorts, buildings, ships, it does, of course, has to be a unique production as it would otherwise just be a factory task. It might seem “simple” to create the Milestone plan in these conditions, as you have the goals set, and a contract defined. A contract often contains specific dates where deliverables needs to be delivered and a logic order for when tasks needs to be done. It is here you’ll see the biggest advantages of the Milestone Plan but also the biggest pitfalls. You will have an overload of information and data and possible milestones to keep track of, and of course that is why a Milestone Plan is needed, but to create that plan out of all the data, you need to master the critical path and proper risk management as well as choosing the suitable milestones and appropriate timeline. It is important that the plan can adapt to unforeseen events, without having to redo the entire thing.

Milestones are used to monitor a progress, but there are drawbacks and limitations to their effectiveness. Milestones focus primarily on the progress of the critical path, and can therefore neglect non-critical activities. Resources are therefore focused on the critical activities and even moved from non-critical activities to critical ones to ensure that milestones are met. This can provide a false impression that a project is on schedule even though some activities are being ignored.

===Annotated bibliography===
• http://www.brighthubpm.com/project-planning/68427-successful-project-milestone-planning/
o Brighthubpm.com has some well-explained articles of basic milestone planning along with many other interesting articles regarding project management!

• http://www.brighthubpm.com/project-planning/68429-project-planning-typical-milestones/
o Another great, basic, article from Brighthubpm.com that gives examples of typical milestones.

• http://www.brighthubpm.com/templates-forms/128506-milestone-templates-for-excel-/?cid=parsely_rec
o Yet another article from Bighthubpm.com. This one is with and about templates for milestone planning! Gives some great and free tools for milestone planning.

• “Milestone Planning” Prepared by: Jörg Aldinger, IBIS 8 Matr. 152028 at the University of Applied Sciences, Heilbronn
o In opposition of Bighthubpm.com, this document explains much ore deeply how a milestone plan is used to its fullest!

====Additional links to other wiki-articles with additional and useful information:====
=====WBS=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Work_Breakdown_Structure_(WBS)

=====Gantt=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/The_Gantt_chart_and_the_usage_nowadays

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Gantt_Charts_as_a_Tool_for_Project_Management

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/The_Gantt_Chart

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Gantt_Chart

=====Critical path=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Critical_chain_project_management_(CCPM)

=====Risk management=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Project_Risk_Management_and_Project_Risk_Management_Processes

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Management_of_risk

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Managing_Uncertainty_and_Risk_on_the_Project

File:Gantt2.jpg

2015-09-28T18:41:37Z

S113665:

The best milestone plan is simple but with depths!

2015-09-28T18:40:22Z

S113665:

''Wiki Article:''
''The best milestone plan is simple but with depths''
==Abstract==
The planning part of a project is essential to succeed. The milestone plan is one of the most used planning tools, but also one of the hardest to master! It may seem simple, but many project managers tend to ‘overuse’ milestones as a motivation tool, and therefore adding too many milestones, and labeling every minor task completion as a milestone. This ‘overuse’ often has a negative effect on the team members’ motivation, as it’ll cause loss of luster and distinctiveness, not to mention the time consumption!
That is just one of many mistakes and issues related to milestone planning.

This article will explore and explain the optimal usage of the tool. If done correctly, will the milestone plan act as an enormous motivation tool along with making sure the project is on track and on the way to success.
==Article==
===Big Idea===
A milestone is in its basic form a stone that tells you that you’re one mile down the road. They provide reference points, and are used to reassure travellers that they’re on track and to indicate distance travelled or distance remaining.

In a project a milestone define a completion of something. The only requirement is that the milestone is tied to a quantitative measurement, an internal or external deliverable, or a significant turning point or transition in the project. It is basically an important event marked on a timeline that are recognized when successfully reached.

The Milestone Plan serves as an essential guideline for every project, from big to small. It has a variety of purposes as it shows, how the intermediate products, or deliverables, build towards the final output and therefore gives an important overview. This is much needed, as this overview is required to keep the project under control and to identify upcoming bottlenecks and therefore giving the possibility of taking preventive actions well ahead of the critical point.
The Milestone Plan is furthermore used as motivation tool. A goal and a vision gets the team together going towards the same goal, on the same path, a plan keeps the team on that path, and the Milestone Plan combines these two and adds continuous motivation
It is important to point out that the milestone plan is not to be mistaken for a replacement for any other tools, it is however a strong addition to any project and should never be left out. It can even take care of the entire planning spectrum of a project if done right; keep reading and you’ll soon know why and how!
===Application===
The milestone plan can be made when the project goal and deliverable has been settled and confirmed. It is often even taken in consideration in the fuzzy front end of a project, when negotiations, according to the bid and contract, are made with the customer as the deadlines is coming to an agreement and the plan is being visualized.
Figure 2: Top level Milestone Plan, with the total overview and possibility to go in depths to another more detailed level.
====Setting the milestones====
Placing milestones on the timeline is a difficult task. It is important to have an even plan with the exact amount of time and space between each milestone. This will promote motivation through sub-goals, by giving the team something to strive for. It is important that the milestones are not too far apart as the team members will forget about it, but it is equally important that they’re not too close as you’ll loose interest and not get the feeling of achieving something as too many minor events are celebrated.
For example, if you’re constructing a car, you don’t need to celebrate the delivery of a bolt for the wheel. Yet it would be a nice thing to celebrate when the wheels are on the car!
A good rule is to have 10% of the total project time duration between each milestone. It should, however, never exceed a 2-week interval to have the continuous motivation.

It is therefore important to define prober milestones for your specific project.
====Define a milestone====
Before you create the timeline with your events you need to determine what kind of milestones you want to “celebrate” and what kind of milestones that makes sense for your project.

Milestones can be grouped under several classifications and each defines an event in its own kind.

▪ Phase transitions occur when the project goes from one phase to another. For example if a product goes from designing to construction a prototype (from software to hardware). You can basically divide phase transitions into six stages: information gathering, or marketing research, planning, design, development, testing, and delivery. Each transition from one stage to another is a viable milestone!

• Rates of total completion are commonly used milestones when the project involves repetition without sequential advancement to the next stage. A good example is a training exercise in which milestones are set for the percentage of employees fully trained or certified, e.g., 25, 50, 75, and 100 percent. This gives the benefits of giving a clearer understanding of the process of the project and understandable by all stakeholders regarding their involvement.

• Performance recognition milestones are achievements that are not directly connected to the advancement of the project, but recognize the quality of the work performed. For example, in the construction of a plant, a typical milestone would be to recognize periodically that employees have logged in a certain number of work hours without a single safety incident.

• Deliverables represents tangible evidence of progress towards the project’s goals. It is therefore a commonly used milestone, as it is also easy to determine. It is by far the most popular choice for a milestone because it represents tangible evidence of progress towards the project's goals.

• Task completion has its resembles with deliverables but define a completion of a specific task. A task milestone could be the completion of the roof on a building, and another to finish the plumbing and so on. This is easy applicable and gives a great overview of the project, not as easy interpreted as the ‘rates of completion’ milestone though, but provides more opportunities regarding the degree of details. It is of great understanding used internal in a project.

A perfect plan for motivation contains some of everything!

You will also need to keep in mind, that milestones needs to be somehow challenging and carry a degree of risk for failure. This is done to inspire your team members to stay motivated and feel a greater sense of accomplishment.
====Creating the plan====
Now that the preferable milestones have been set on the start-to-finish-timeline, you will need to determine the degree of details for each milestone shown on the plan. This is however the part that is hard to master and very time-consuming. It is important to get the right level of details for the user, but not too much as the plan will loose its ability to provide the golden overview.
The overlook of the milestone plan needs the exact amount of information valid to that specific user/reader.
The best Milestone Plan can fit onto a single page!
Figure 3: Milestone Plan made in cooperation with the Gantt-chart method.

Large and complex projects often needs more than one Milestone Plan, as a single plan might not satisfy all the planning needs on the strategic level. In this case “Subsidiary milestone plans” are used. Each Milestone on the master plan goes into a Milestone Plan of its own in a deeper level.
For example there is a master Milestone Plan for a car itself, with milestones such as having the chassis made, installing the engine and so on. When a stakeholder is looking on the master plan to see when the wheels are getting fitted, they don’t care about the subsidiary milestone of the tire getting fitted to the rim. This is however a milestone on the next level, the deeper version only containing milestones for the wheel itself.
This way of doing Milestone Plans is made by incorporating the WBS (Work-Breakdown-Structure)– with each level and string acting as a subsidiary milestone plan.
[[File:/Users/JoHa/Desktop/Gantt.jpg|frame|caption]]
====Basic how-to====
Here’s a step-by-step how-to guide of the basics regarding a Milestone Plan.

# Determine start and end date and set up the timeline.
# Define the audience and balance the “plan-level” accordingly.
# Define milestones worth “celebrating”.
## Keep in mind to choose milestones that complements the recommended time interval and the audience.
# Insert the chosen milestones to the timeline and put in relevant details for each milestone.
# Mind the critical path!
### Add buffers if needed to counteract for unforeseen risks and time delays.
# Supplement the milestones with relevant data.
Now all you need to do is to take a step back and enjoy your newfound golden overview!
===Limitations===
Looking at bigger projects, for example delivery-projects as constructions of all sorts, buildings, ships, it does, of course, has to be a unique production as it would otherwise just be a factory task. It might seem “simple” to create the Milestone plan in these conditions, as you have the goals set, and a contract defined. A contract often contains specific dates where deliverables needs to be delivered and a logic order for when tasks needs to be done. It is here you’ll see the biggest advantages of the Milestone Plan but also the biggest pitfalls. You will have an overload of information and data and possible milestones to keep track of, and of course that is why a Milestone Plan is needed, but to create that plan out of all the data, you need to master the critical path and proper risk management as well as choosing the suitable milestones and appropriate timeline. It is important that the plan can adapt to unforeseen events, without having to redo the entire thing.

Milestones are used to monitor a progress, but there are drawbacks and limitations to their effectiveness. Milestones focus primarily on the progress of the critical path, and can therefore neglect non-critical activities. Resources are therefore focused on the critical activities and even moved from non-critical activities to critical ones to ensure that milestones are met. This can provide a false impression that a project is on schedule even though some activities are being ignored.

===Annotated bibliography===
• http://www.brighthubpm.com/project-planning/68427-successful-project-milestone-planning/
o Brighthubpm.com has some well-explained articles of basic milestone planning along with many other interesting articles regarding project management!

• http://www.brighthubpm.com/project-planning/68429-project-planning-typical-milestones/
o Another great, basic, article from Brighthubpm.com that gives examples of typical milestones.

• http://www.brighthubpm.com/templates-forms/128506-milestone-templates-for-excel-/?cid=parsely_rec
o Yet another article from Bighthubpm.com. This one is with and about templates for milestone planning! Gives some great and free tools for milestone planning.

• “Milestone Planning” Prepared by: Jörg Aldinger, IBIS 8 Matr. 152028 at the University of Applied Sciences, Heilbronn
o In opposition of Bighthubpm.com, this document explains much ore deeply how a milestone plan is used to its fullest!

====Additional links to other wiki-articles with additional and useful information:====
=====WBS=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Work_Breakdown_Structure_(WBS)

=====Gantt=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/The_Gantt_chart_and_the_usage_nowadays

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Gantt_Charts_as_a_Tool_for_Project_Management

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/The_Gantt_Chart

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Gantt_Chart

=====Critical path=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Critical_chain_project_management_(CCPM)

=====Risk management=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Project_Risk_Management_and_Project_Risk_Management_Processes

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Management_of_risk

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Managing_Uncertainty_and_Risk_on_the_Project

The best milestone plan is simple but with depths!

2015-09-28T18:36:32Z

S113665:

''Wiki Article:''
''The best milestone plan is simple but with depths''
==Abstract==
The planning part of a project is essential to succeed. The milestone plan is one of the most used planning tools, but also one of the hardest to master! It may seem simple, but many project managers tend to ‘overuse’ milestones as a motivation tool, and therefore adding too many milestones, and labeling every minor task completion as a milestone. This ‘overuse’ often has a negative effect on the team members’ motivation, as it’ll cause loss of luster and distinctiveness, not to mention the time consumption!
That is just one of many mistakes and issues related to milestone planning.

This article will explore and explain the optimal usage of the tool. If done correctly, will the milestone plan act as an enormous motivation tool along with making sure the project is on track and on the way to success.
==Article==
===Big Idea===
A milestone is in its basic form a stone that tells you that you’re one mile down the road. They provide reference points, and are used to reassure travellers that they’re on track and to indicate distance travelled or distance remaining.

In a project a milestone define a completion of something. The only requirement is that the milestone is tied to a quantitative measurement, an internal or external deliverable, or a significant turning point or transition in the project. It is basically an important event marked on a timeline that are recognized when successfully reached.

The Milestone Plan serves as an essential guideline for every project, from big to small. It has a variety of purposes as it shows, how the intermediate products, or deliverables, build towards the final output and therefore gives an important overview. This is much needed, as this overview is required to keep the project under control and to identify upcoming bottlenecks and therefore giving the possibility of taking preventive actions well ahead of the critical point.
The Milestone Plan is furthermore used as motivation tool. A goal and a vision gets the team together going towards the same goal, on the same path, a plan keeps the team on that path, and the Milestone Plan combines these two and adds continuous motivation
It is important to point out that the milestone plan is not to be mistaken for a replacement for any other tools, it is however a strong addition to any project and should never be left out. It can even take care of the entire planning spectrum of a project if done right; keep reading and you’ll soon know why and how!
===Application===
The milestone plan can be made when the project goal and deliverable has been settled and confirmed. It is often even taken in consideration in the fuzzy front end of a project, when negotiations, according to the bid and contract, are made with the customer as the deadlines is coming to an agreement and the plan is being visualized.
Figure 2: Top level Milestone Plan, with the total overview and possibility to go in depths to another more detailed level.
====Setting the milestones====
Placing milestones on the timeline is a difficult task. It is important to have an even plan with the exact amount of time and space between each milestone. This will promote motivation through sub-goals, by giving the team something to strive for. It is important that the milestones are not too far apart as the team members will forget about it, but it is equally important that they’re not too close as you’ll loose interest and not get the feeling of achieving something as too many minor events are celebrated.
For example, if you’re constructing a car, you don’t need to celebrate the delivery of a bolt for the wheel. Yet it would be a nice thing to celebrate when the wheels are on the car!
A good rule is to have 10% of the total project time duration between each milestone. It should, however, never exceed a 2-week interval to have the continuous motivation.

It is therefore important to define prober milestones for your specific project.
====Define a milestone====
Before you create the timeline with your events you need to determine what kind of milestones you want to “celebrate” and what kind of milestones that makes sense for your project.

Milestones can be grouped under several classifications and each defines an event in its own kind.

▪ Phase transitions occur when the project goes from one phase to another. For example if a product goes from designing to construction a prototype (from software to hardware). You can basically divide phase transitions into six stages: information gathering, or marketing research, planning, design, development, testing, and delivery. Each transition from one stage to another is a viable milestone!

• Rates of total completion are commonly used milestones when the project involves repetition without sequential advancement to the next stage. A good example is a training exercise in which milestones are set for the percentage of employees fully trained or certified, e.g., 25, 50, 75, and 100 percent. This gives the benefits of giving a clearer understanding of the process of the project and understandable by all stakeholders regarding their involvement.

• Performance recognition milestones are achievements that are not directly connected to the advancement of the project, but recognize the quality of the work performed. For example, in the construction of a plant, a typical milestone would be to recognize periodically that employees have logged in a certain number of work hours without a single safety incident.

• Deliverables represents tangible evidence of progress towards the project’s goals. It is therefore a commonly used milestone, as it is also easy to determine. It is by far the most popular choice for a milestone because it represents tangible evidence of progress towards the project's goals.

• Task completion has its resembles with deliverables but define a completion of a specific task. A task milestone could be the completion of the roof on a building, and another to finish the plumbing and so on. This is easy applicable and gives a great overview of the project, not as easy interpreted as the ‘rates of completion’ milestone though, but provides more opportunities regarding the degree of details. It is of great understanding used internal in a project.

A perfect plan for motivation contains some of everything!

You will also need to keep in mind, that milestones needs to be somehow challenging and carry a degree of risk for failure. This is done to inspire your team members to stay motivated and feel a greater sense of accomplishment.
====Creating the plan====
Now that the preferable milestones have been set on the start-to-finish-timeline, you will need to determine the degree of details for each milestone shown on the plan. This is however the part that is hard to master and very time-consuming. It is important to get the right level of details for the user, but not too much as the plan will loose its ability to provide the golden overview.
The overlook of the milestone plan needs the exact amount of information valid to that specific user/reader.
The best Milestone Plan can fit onto a single page!
Figure 3: Milestone Plan made in cooperation with the Gantt-chart method.

Large and complex projects often needs more than one Milestone Plan, as a single plan might not satisfy all the planning needs on the strategic level. In this case “Subsidiary milestone plans” are used. Each Milestone on the master plan goes into a Milestone Plan of its own in a deeper level.
For example there is a master Milestone Plan for a car itself, with milestones such as having the chassis made, installing the engine and so on. When a stakeholder is looking on the master plan to see when the wheels are getting fitted, they don’t care about the subsidiary milestone of the tire getting fitted to the rim. This is however a milestone on the next level, the deeper version only containing milestones for the wheel itself.
This way of doing Milestone Plans is made by incorporating the WBS (Work-Breakdown-Structure)– with each level and string acting as a subsidiary milestone plan.
[[File:/Users/JoHa/Desktop/Skærmbillede 2015-09-28 kl. 20.19.01.png.jpg]]
====Basic how-to====
Here’s a step-by-step how-to guide of the basics regarding a Milestone Plan.

# Determine start and end date and set up the timeline.
# Define the audience and balance the “plan-level” accordingly.
# Define milestones worth “celebrating”.
## Keep in mind to choose milestones that complements the recommended time interval and the audience.
# Insert the chosen milestones to the timeline and put in relevant details for each milestone.
# Mind the critical path!
### Add buffers if needed to counteract for unforeseen risks and time delays.
# Supplement the milestones with relevant data.
Now all you need to do is to take a step back and enjoy your newfound golden overview!
===Limitations===
Looking at bigger projects, for example delivery-projects as constructions of all sorts, buildings, ships, it does, of course, has to be a unique production as it would otherwise just be a factory task. It might seem “simple” to create the Milestone plan in these conditions, as you have the goals set, and a contract defined. A contract often contains specific dates where deliverables needs to be delivered and a logic order for when tasks needs to be done. It is here you’ll see the biggest advantages of the Milestone Plan but also the biggest pitfalls. You will have an overload of information and data and possible milestones to keep track of, and of course that is why a Milestone Plan is needed, but to create that plan out of all the data, you need to master the critical path and proper risk management as well as choosing the suitable milestones and appropriate timeline. It is important that the plan can adapt to unforeseen events, without having to redo the entire thing.

Milestones are used to monitor a progress, but there are drawbacks and limitations to their effectiveness. Milestones focus primarily on the progress of the critical path, and can therefore neglect non-critical activities. Resources are therefore focused on the critical activities and even moved from non-critical activities to critical ones to ensure that milestones are met. This can provide a false impression that a project is on schedule even though some activities are being ignored.

===Annotated bibliography===
• http://www.brighthubpm.com/project-planning/68427-successful-project-milestone-planning/
o Brighthubpm.com has some well-explained articles of basic milestone planning along with many other interesting articles regarding project management!

• http://www.brighthubpm.com/project-planning/68429-project-planning-typical-milestones/
o Another great, basic, article from Brighthubpm.com that gives examples of typical milestones.

• http://www.brighthubpm.com/templates-forms/128506-milestone-templates-for-excel-/?cid=parsely_rec
o Yet another article from Bighthubpm.com. This one is with and about templates for milestone planning! Gives some great and free tools for milestone planning.

• “Milestone Planning” Prepared by: Jörg Aldinger, IBIS 8 Matr. 152028 at the University of Applied Sciences, Heilbronn
o In opposition of Bighthubpm.com, this document explains much ore deeply how a milestone plan is used to its fullest!

====Additional links to other wiki-articles with additional and useful information:====
=====WBS=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Work_Breakdown_Structure_(WBS)

=====Gantt=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/The_Gantt_chart_and_the_usage_nowadays

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Gantt_Charts_as_a_Tool_for_Project_Management

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/The_Gantt_Chart

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Gantt_Chart

=====Critical path=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Critical_chain_project_management_(CCPM)

=====Risk management=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Project_Risk_Management_and_Project_Risk_Management_Processes

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Management_of_risk

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Managing_Uncertainty_and_Risk_on_the_Project

The best milestone plan is simple but with depths!

2015-09-28T18:36:05Z

S113665:

''Wiki Article:''
''The best milestone plan is simple but with depths''
==Abstract==
The planning part of a project is essential to succeed. The milestone plan is one of the most used planning tools, but also one of the hardest to master! It may seem simple, but many project managers tend to ‘overuse’ milestones as a motivation tool, and therefore adding too many milestones, and labeling every minor task completion as a milestone. This ‘overuse’ often has a negative effect on the team members’ motivation, as it’ll cause loss of luster and distinctiveness, not to mention the time consumption!
That is just one of many mistakes and issues related to milestone planning.

This article will explore and explain the optimal usage of the tool. If done correctly, will the milestone plan act as an enormous motivation tool along with making sure the project is on track and on the way to success.
==Article==
===Big Idea===
A milestone is in its basic form a stone that tells you that you’re one mile down the road. They provide reference points, and are used to reassure travellers that they’re on track and to indicate distance travelled or distance remaining.

In a project a milestone define a completion of something. The only requirement is that the milestone is tied to a quantitative measurement, an internal or external deliverable, or a significant turning point or transition in the project. It is basically an important event marked on a timeline that are recognized when successfully reached.

The Milestone Plan serves as an essential guideline for every project, from big to small. It has a variety of purposes as it shows, how the intermediate products, or deliverables, build towards the final output and therefore gives an important overview. This is much needed, as this overview is required to keep the project under control and to identify upcoming bottlenecks and therefore giving the possibility of taking preventive actions well ahead of the critical point.
The Milestone Plan is furthermore used as motivation tool. A goal and a vision gets the team together going towards the same goal, on the same path, a plan keeps the team on that path, and the Milestone Plan combines these two and adds continuous motivation
It is important to point out that the milestone plan is not to be mistaken for a replacement for any other tools, it is however a strong addition to any project and should never be left out. It can even take care of the entire planning spectrum of a project if done right; keep reading and you’ll soon know why and how!
===Application===
The milestone plan can be made when the project goal and deliverable has been settled and confirmed. It is often even taken in consideration in the fuzzy front end of a project, when negotiations, according to the bid and contract, are made with the customer as the deadlines is coming to an agreement and the plan is being visualized.
Figure 2: Top level Milestone Plan, with the total overview and possibility to go in depths to another more detailed level.
====Setting the milestones====
Placing milestones on the timeline is a difficult task. It is important to have an even plan with the exact amount of time and space between each milestone. This will promote motivation through sub-goals, by giving the team something to strive for. It is important that the milestones are not too far apart as the team members will forget about it, but it is equally important that they’re not too close as you’ll loose interest and not get the feeling of achieving something as too many minor events are celebrated.
For example, if you’re constructing a car, you don’t need to celebrate the delivery of a bolt for the wheel. Yet it would be a nice thing to celebrate when the wheels are on the car!
A good rule is to have 10% of the total project time duration between each milestone. It should, however, never exceed a 2-week interval to have the continuous motivation.

It is therefore important to define prober milestones for your specific project.
====Define a milestone====
Before you create the timeline with your events you need to determine what kind of milestones you want to “celebrate” and what kind of milestones that makes sense for your project.

Milestones can be grouped under several classifications and each defines an event in its own kind.

▪ Phase transitions occur when the project goes from one phase to another. For example if a product goes from designing to construction a prototype (from software to hardware). You can basically divide phase transitions into six stages: information gathering, or marketing research, planning, design, development, testing, and delivery. Each transition from one stage to another is a viable milestone!

• Rates of total completion are commonly used milestones when the project involves repetition without sequential advancement to the next stage. A good example is a training exercise in which milestones are set for the percentage of employees fully trained or certified, e.g., 25, 50, 75, and 100 percent. This gives the benefits of giving a clearer understanding of the process of the project and understandable by all stakeholders regarding their involvement.

• Performance recognition milestones are achievements that are not directly connected to the advancement of the project, but recognize the quality of the work performed. For example, in the construction of a plant, a typical milestone would be to recognize periodically that employees have logged in a certain number of work hours without a single safety incident.

• Deliverables represents tangible evidence of progress towards the project’s goals. It is therefore a commonly used milestone, as it is also easy to determine. It is by far the most popular choice for a milestone because it represents tangible evidence of progress towards the project's goals.

• Task completion has its resembles with deliverables but define a completion of a specific task. A task milestone could be the completion of the roof on a building, and another to finish the plumbing and so on. This is easy applicable and gives a great overview of the project, not as easy interpreted as the ‘rates of completion’ milestone though, but provides more opportunities regarding the degree of details. It is of great understanding used internal in a project.

A perfect plan for motivation contains some of everything!

You will also need to keep in mind, that milestones needs to be somehow challenging and carry a degree of risk for failure. This is done to inspire your team members to stay motivated and feel a greater sense of accomplishment.
====Creating the plan====
Now that the preferable milestones have been set on the start-to-finish-timeline, you will need to determine the degree of details for each milestone shown on the plan. This is however the part that is hard to master and very time-consuming. It is important to get the right level of details for the user, but not too much as the plan will loose its ability to provide the golden overview.
The overlook of the milestone plan needs the exact amount of information valid to that specific user/reader.
The best Milestone Plan can fit onto a single page!
Figure 3: Milestone Plan made in cooperation with the Gantt-chart method.

Large and complex projects often needs more than one Milestone Plan, as a single plan might not satisfy all the planning needs on the strategic level. In this case “Subsidiary milestone plans” are used. Each Milestone on the master plan goes into a Milestone Plan of its own in a deeper level.
For example there is a master Milestone Plan for a car itself, with milestones such as having the chassis made, installing the engine and so on. When a stakeholder is looking on the master plan to see when the wheels are getting fitted, they don’t care about the subsidiary milestone of the tire getting fitted to the rim. This is however a milestone on the next level, the deeper version only containing milestones for the wheel itself.
This way of doing Milestone Plans is made by incorporating the WBS (Work-Breakdown-Structure)– with each level and string acting as a subsidiary milestone plan.
[[File:/Users/JoHa/Desktop/Skærmbillede 2015-09-28 kl. 20.19.01.png.jpg]]
====Basic how-to====
Here’s a step-by-step how-to guide of the basics regarding a Milestone Plan.

#1. Determine start and end date and set up the timeline.
#2. Define the audience and balance the “plan-level” accordingly.
#3. Define milestones worth “celebrating”.
##3.1. Keep in mind to choose milestones that complements the recommended time interval and the audience.
#4. Insert the chosen milestones to the timeline and put in relevant details for each milestone.
#4.1. Mind the critical path!
###4.1.1. Add buffers if needed to counteract for unforeseen risks and time delays.
#5. Supplement the milestones with relevant data.
Now all you need to do is to take a step back and enjoy your newfound golden overview!
===Limitations===
Looking at bigger projects, for example delivery-projects as constructions of all sorts, buildings, ships, it does, of course, has to be a unique production as it would otherwise just be a factory task. It might seem “simple” to create the Milestone plan in these conditions, as you have the goals set, and a contract defined. A contract often contains specific dates where deliverables needs to be delivered and a logic order for when tasks needs to be done. It is here you’ll see the biggest advantages of the Milestone Plan but also the biggest pitfalls. You will have an overload of information and data and possible milestones to keep track of, and of course that is why a Milestone Plan is needed, but to create that plan out of all the data, you need to master the critical path and proper risk management as well as choosing the suitable milestones and appropriate timeline. It is important that the plan can adapt to unforeseen events, without having to redo the entire thing.

Milestones are used to monitor a progress, but there are drawbacks and limitations to their effectiveness. Milestones focus primarily on the progress of the critical path, and can therefore neglect non-critical activities. Resources are therefore focused on the critical activities and even moved from non-critical activities to critical ones to ensure that milestones are met. This can provide a false impression that a project is on schedule even though some activities are being ignored.

===Annotated bibliography===
• http://www.brighthubpm.com/project-planning/68427-successful-project-milestone-planning/
o Brighthubpm.com has some well-explained articles of basic milestone planning along with many other interesting articles regarding project management!

• http://www.brighthubpm.com/project-planning/68429-project-planning-typical-milestones/
o Another great, basic, article from Brighthubpm.com that gives examples of typical milestones.

• http://www.brighthubpm.com/templates-forms/128506-milestone-templates-for-excel-/?cid=parsely_rec
o Yet another article from Bighthubpm.com. This one is with and about templates for milestone planning! Gives some great and free tools for milestone planning.

• “Milestone Planning” Prepared by: Jörg Aldinger, IBIS 8 Matr. 152028 at the University of Applied Sciences, Heilbronn
o In opposition of Bighthubpm.com, this document explains much ore deeply how a milestone plan is used to its fullest!

====Additional links to other wiki-articles with additional and useful information:====
=====WBS=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Work_Breakdown_Structure_(WBS)

=====Gantt=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/The_Gantt_chart_and_the_usage_nowadays

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Gantt_Charts_as_a_Tool_for_Project_Management

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/The_Gantt_Chart

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Gantt_Chart

=====Critical path=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Critical_chain_project_management_(CCPM)

=====Risk management=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Project_Risk_Management_and_Project_Risk_Management_Processes

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Management_of_risk

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Managing_Uncertainty_and_Risk_on_the_Project

The best milestone plan is simple but with depths!

2015-09-28T18:27:54Z

S113665:

''Wiki Article:''
''The best milestone plan is simple but with depths''
==Abstract==
The planning part of a project is essential to succeed. The milestone plan is one of the most used planning tools, but also one of the hardest to master! It may seem simple, but many project managers tend to ‘overuse’ milestones as a motivation tool, and therefore adding too many milestones, and labeling every minor task completion as a milestone. This ‘overuse’ often has a negative effect on the team members’ motivation, as it’ll cause loss of luster and distinctiveness, not to mention the time consumption!
That is just one of many mistakes and issues related to milestone planning.

This article will explore and explain the optimal usage of the tool. If done correctly, will the milestone plan act as an enormous motivation tool along with making sure the project is on track and on the way to success.
==Article==
===Big Idea===
A milestone is in its basic form a stone that tells you that you’re one mile down the road. They provide reference points, and are used to reassure travellers that they’re on track and to indicate distance travelled or distance remaining.

In a project a milestone define a completion of something. The only requirement is that the milestone is tied to a quantitative measurement, an internal or external deliverable, or a significant turning point or transition in the project. It is basically an important event marked on a timeline that are recognized when successfully reached.

The Milestone Plan serves as an essential guideline for every project, from big to small. It has a variety of purposes as it shows, how the intermediate products, or deliverables, build towards the final output and therefore gives an important overview. This is much needed, as this overview is required to keep the project under control and to identify upcoming bottlenecks and therefore giving the possibility of taking preventive actions well ahead of the critical point.
The Milestone Plan is furthermore used as motivation tool. A goal and a vision gets the team together going towards the same goal, on the same path, a plan keeps the team on that path, and the Milestone Plan combines these two and adds continuous motivation
It is important to point out that the milestone plan is not to be mistaken for a replacement for any other tools, it is however a strong addition to any project and should never be left out. It can even take care of the entire planning spectrum of a project if done right; keep reading and you’ll soon know why and how!
===Application===
The milestone plan can be made when the project goal and deliverable has been settled and confirmed. It is often even taken in consideration in the fuzzy front end of a project, when negotiations, according to the bid and contract, are made with the customer as the deadlines is coming to an agreement and the plan is being visualized.
Figure 2: Top level Milestone Plan, with the total overview and possibility to go in depths to another more detailed level.
====Setting the milestones====
Placing milestones on the timeline is a difficult task. It is important to have an even plan with the exact amount of time and space between each milestone. This will promote motivation through sub-goals, by giving the team something to strive for. It is important that the milestones are not too far apart as the team members will forget about it, but it is equally important that they’re not too close as you’ll loose interest and not get the feeling of achieving something as too many minor events are celebrated.
For example, if you’re constructing a car, you don’t need to celebrate the delivery of a bolt for the wheel. Yet it would be a nice thing to celebrate when the wheels are on the car!
A good rule is to have 10% of the total project time duration between each milestone. It should, however, never exceed a 2-week interval to have the continuous motivation.

It is therefore important to define prober milestones for your specific project.
====Define a milestone====
Before you create the timeline with your events you need to determine what kind of milestones you want to “celebrate” and what kind of milestones that makes sense for your project.

Milestones can be grouped under several classifications and each defines an event in its own kind.

▪ Phase transitions occur when the project goes from one phase to another. For example if a product goes from designing to construction a prototype (from software to hardware). You can basically divide phase transitions into six stages: information gathering, or marketing research, planning, design, development, testing, and delivery. Each transition from one stage to another is a viable milestone!

• Rates of total completion are commonly used milestones when the project involves repetition without sequential advancement to the next stage. A good example is a training exercise in which milestones are set for the percentage of employees fully trained or certified, e.g., 25, 50, 75, and 100 percent. This gives the benefits of giving a clearer understanding of the process of the project and understandable by all stakeholders regarding their involvement.

• Performance recognition milestones are achievements that are not directly connected to the advancement of the project, but recognize the quality of the work performed. For example, in the construction of a plant, a typical milestone would be to recognize periodically that employees have logged in a certain number of work hours without a single safety incident.

• Deliverables represents tangible evidence of progress towards the project’s goals. It is therefore a commonly used milestone, as it is also easy to determine. It is by far the most popular choice for a milestone because it represents tangible evidence of progress towards the project's goals.

• Task completion has its resembles with deliverables but define a completion of a specific task. A task milestone could be the completion of the roof on a building, and another to finish the plumbing and so on. This is easy applicable and gives a great overview of the project, not as easy interpreted as the ‘rates of completion’ milestone though, but provides more opportunities regarding the degree of details. It is of great understanding used internal in a project.

A perfect plan for motivation contains some of everything!

You will also need to keep in mind, that milestones needs to be somehow challenging and carry a degree of risk for failure. This is done to inspire your team members to stay motivated and feel a greater sense of accomplishment.
====Creating the plan====
Now that the preferable milestones have been set on the start-to-finish-timeline, you will need to determine the degree of details for each milestone shown on the plan. This is however the part that is hard to master and very time-consuming. It is important to get the right level of details for the user, but not too much as the plan will loose its ability to provide the golden overview.
The overlook of the milestone plan needs the exact amount of information valid to that specific user/reader.
The best Milestone Plan can fit onto a single page!
Figure 3: Milestone Plan made in cooperation with the Gantt-chart method.

Large and complex projects often needs more than one Milestone Plan, as a single plan might not satisfy all the planning needs on the strategic level. In this case “Subsidiary milestone plans” are used. Each Milestone on the master plan goes into a Milestone Plan of its own in a deeper level.
For example there is a master Milestone Plan for a car itself, with milestones such as having the chassis made, installing the engine and so on. When a stakeholder is looking on the master plan to see when the wheels are getting fitted, they don’t care about the subsidiary milestone of the tire getting fitted to the rim. This is however a milestone on the next level, the deeper version only containing milestones for the wheel itself.
This way of doing Milestone Plans is made by incorporating the WBS (Work-Breakdown-Structure)– with each level and string acting as a subsidiary milestone plan.
[[File:/Users/JoHa/Desktop/Skærmbillede 2015-09-28 kl. 20.19.01.png.jpg]]
====Basic how-to====
Here’s a step-by-step how-to guide of the basics regarding a Milestone Plan.

1. Determine start and end date and set up the timeline.
2. Define the audience and balance the “plan-level” accordingly.
3. Define milestones worth “celebrating”.
3.1. Keep in mind to choose milestones that complements the recommended time interval and the audience.
4. Insert the chosen milestones to the timeline and put in relevant details for each milestone.
4.1. Mind the critical path!
4.1.1. Add buffers if needed to counteract for unforeseen risks and time delays.
5. Supplement the milestones with relevant data.
Now all you need to do is to take a step back and enjoy your newfound golden overview!
===Limitations===
Looking at bigger projects, for example delivery-projects as constructions of all sorts, buildings, ships, it does, of course, has to be a unique production as it would otherwise just be a factory task. It might seem “simple” to create the Milestone plan in these conditions, as you have the goals set, and a contract defined. A contract often contains specific dates where deliverables needs to be delivered and a logic order for when tasks needs to be done. It is here you’ll see the biggest advantages of the Milestone Plan but also the biggest pitfalls. You will have an overload of information and data and possible milestones to keep track of, and of course that is why a Milestone Plan is needed, but to create that plan out of all the data, you need to master the critical path and proper risk management as well as choosing the suitable milestones and appropriate timeline. It is important that the plan can adapt to unforeseen events, without having to redo the entire thing.

Milestones are used to monitor a progress, but there are drawbacks and limitations to their effectiveness. Milestones focus primarily on the progress of the critical path, and can therefore neglect non-critical activities. Resources are therefore focused on the critical activities and even moved from non-critical activities to critical ones to ensure that milestones are met. This can provide a false impression that a project is on schedule even though some activities are being ignored.

===Annotated bibliography===
• http://www.brighthubpm.com/project-planning/68427-successful-project-milestone-planning/
o Brighthubpm.com has some well-explained articles of basic milestone planning along with many other interesting articles regarding project management!

• http://www.brighthubpm.com/project-planning/68429-project-planning-typical-milestones/
o Another great, basic, article from Brighthubpm.com that gives examples of typical milestones.

• http://www.brighthubpm.com/templates-forms/128506-milestone-templates-for-excel-/?cid=parsely_rec
o Yet another article from Bighthubpm.com. This one is with and about templates for milestone planning! Gives some great and free tools for milestone planning.

• “Milestone Planning” Prepared by: Jörg Aldinger, IBIS 8 Matr. 152028 at the University of Applied Sciences, Heilbronn
o In opposition of Bighthubpm.com, this document explains much ore deeply how a milestone plan is used to its fullest!

====Additional links to other wiki-articles with additional and useful information:====
=====WBS=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Work_Breakdown_Structure_(WBS)

=====Gantt=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/The_Gantt_chart_and_the_usage_nowadays

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Gantt_Charts_as_a_Tool_for_Project_Management

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/The_Gantt_Chart

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Gantt_Chart

=====Critical path=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Critical_chain_project_management_(CCPM)

=====Risk management=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Project_Risk_Management_and_Project_Risk_Management_Processes

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Management_of_risk

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Managing_Uncertainty_and_Risk_on_the_Project

The best milestone plan is simple but with depths!

2015-09-28T18:25:44Z

S113665:

''Wiki Article:''
''The best milestone plan is simple but with depths''
==Abstract==
The planning part of a project is essential to succeed. The milestone plan is one of the most used planning tools, but also one of the hardest to master! It may seem simple, but many project managers tend to ‘overuse’ milestones as a motivation tool, and therefore adding too many milestones, and labeling every minor task completion as a milestone. This ‘overuse’ often has a negative effect on the team members’ motivation, as it’ll cause loss of luster and distinctiveness, not to mention the time consumption!
That is just one of many mistakes and issues related to milestone planning.

This article will explore and explain the optimal usage of the tool. If done correctly, will the milestone plan act as an enormous motivation tool along with making sure the project is on track and on the way to success.
==Article==
===Big Idea===
A milestone is in its basic form a stone that tells you that you’re one mile down the road. They provide reference points, and are used to reassure travellers that they’re on track and to indicate distance travelled or distance remaining.

In a project a milestone define a completion of something. The only requirement is that the milestone is tied to a quantitative measurement, an internal or external deliverable, or a significant turning point or transition in the project. It is basically an important event marked on a timeline that are recognized when successfully reached.

The Milestone Plan serves as an essential guideline for every project, from big to small. It has a variety of purposes as it shows, how the intermediate products, or deliverables, build towards the final output and therefore gives an important overview. This is much needed, as this overview is required to keep the project under control and to identify upcoming bottlenecks and therefore giving the possibility of taking preventive actions well ahead of the critical point.
The Milestone Plan is furthermore used as motivation tool. A goal and a vision gets the team together going towards the same goal, on the same path, a plan keeps the team on that path, and the Milestone Plan combines these two and adds continuous motivation
It is important to point out that the milestone plan is not to be mistaken for a replacement for any other tools, it is however a strong addition to any project and should never be left out. It can even take care of the entire planning spectrum of a project if done right; keep reading and you’ll soon know why and how!
===Application===
The milestone plan can be made when the project goal and deliverable has been settled and confirmed. It is often even taken in consideration in the fuzzy front end of a project, when negotiations, according to the bid and contract, are made with the customer as the deadlines is coming to an agreement and the plan is being visualized.
Figure 2: Top level Milestone Plan, with the total overview and possibility to go in depths to another more detailed level.
====Setting the milestones====
Placing milestones on the timeline is a difficult task. It is important to have an even plan with the exact amount of time and space between each milestone. This will promote motivation through sub-goals, by giving the team something to strive for. It is important that the milestones are not too far apart as the team members will forget about it, but it is equally important that they’re not too close as you’ll loose interest and not get the feeling of achieving something as too many minor events are celebrated.
For example, if you’re constructing a car, you don’t need to celebrate the delivery of a bolt for the wheel. Yet it would be a nice thing to celebrate when the wheels are on the car!
A good rule is to have 10% of the total project time duration between each milestone. It should, however, never exceed a 2-week interval to have the continuous motivation.

It is therefore important to define prober milestones for your specific project.
====Define a milestone====
Before you create the timeline with your events you need to determine what kind of milestones you want to “celebrate” and what kind of milestones that makes sense for your project.

Milestones can be grouped under several classifications and each defines an event in its own kind.

▪ Phase transitions occur when the project goes from one phase to another. For example if a product goes from designing to construction a prototype (from software to hardware). You can basically divide phase transitions into six stages: information gathering, or marketing research, planning, design, development, testing, and delivery. Each transition from one stage to another is a viable milestone!

• Rates of total completion are commonly used milestones when the project involves repetition without sequential advancement to the next stage. A good example is a training exercise in which milestones are set for the percentage of employees fully trained or certified, e.g., 25, 50, 75, and 100 percent. This gives the benefits of giving a clearer understanding of the process of the project and understandable by all stakeholders regarding their involvement.

• Performance recognition milestones are achievements that are not directly connected to the advancement of the project, but recognize the quality of the work performed. For example, in the construction of a plant, a typical milestone would be to recognize periodically that employees have logged in a certain number of work hours without a single safety incident.

• Deliverables represents tangible evidence of progress towards the project’s goals. It is therefore a commonly used milestone, as it is also easy to determine. It is by far the most popular choice for a milestone because it represents tangible evidence of progress towards the project's goals.

• Task completion has its resembles with deliverables but define a completion of a specific task. A task milestone could be the completion of the roof on a building, and another to finish the plumbing and so on. This is easy applicable and gives a great overview of the project, not as easy interpreted as the ‘rates of completion’ milestone though, but provides more opportunities regarding the degree of details. It is of great understanding used internal in a project.

A perfect plan for motivation contains some of everything!

You will also need to keep in mind, that milestones needs to be somehow challenging and carry a degree of risk for failure. This is done to inspire your team members to stay motivated and feel a greater sense of accomplishment.
====Creating the plan====
Now that the preferable milestones have been set on the start-to-finish-timeline, you will need to determine the degree of details for each milestone shown on the plan. This is however the part that is hard to master and very time-consuming. It is important to get the right level of details for the user, but not too much as the plan will loose its ability to provide the golden overview.
The overlook of the milestone plan needs the exact amount of information valid to that specific user/reader.
The best Milestone Plan can fit onto a single page!
Figure 3: Milestone Plan made in cooperation with the Gantt-chart method.

Large and complex projects often needs more than one Milestone Plan, as a single plan might not satisfy all the planning needs on the strategic level. In this case “Subsidiary milestone plans” are used. Each Milestone on the master plan goes into a Milestone Plan of its own in a deeper level.
For example there is a master Milestone Plan for a car itself, with milestones such as having the chassis made, installing the engine and so on. When a stakeholder is looking on the master plan to see when the wheels are getting fitted, they don’t care about the subsidiary milestone of the tire getting fitted to the rim. This is however a milestone on the next level, the deeper version only containing milestones for the wheel itself.
This way of doing Milestone Plans is made by incorporating the WBS (Work-Breakdown-Structure)– with each level and string acting as a subsidiary milestone plan.
====Basic how-to====
Here’s a step-by-step how-to guide of the basics regarding a Milestone Plan.

1. Determine start and end date and set up the timeline.
2. Define the audience and balance the “plan-level” accordingly.
3. Define milestones worth “celebrating”.
3.1. Keep in mind to choose milestones that complements the recommended time interval and the audience.
4. Insert the chosen milestones to the timeline and put in relevant details for each milestone.
4.1. Mind the critical path!
4.1.1. Add buffers if needed to counteract for unforeseen risks and time delays.
5. Supplement the milestones with relevant data.
Now all you need to do is to take a step back and enjoy your newfound golden overview!
===Limitations===
Looking at bigger projects, for example delivery-projects as constructions of all sorts, buildings, ships, it does, of course, has to be a unique production as it would otherwise just be a factory task. It might seem “simple” to create the Milestone plan in these conditions, as you have the goals set, and a contract defined. A contract often contains specific dates where deliverables needs to be delivered and a logic order for when tasks needs to be done. It is here you’ll see the biggest advantages of the Milestone Plan but also the biggest pitfalls. You will have an overload of information and data and possible milestones to keep track of, and of course that is why a Milestone Plan is needed, but to create that plan out of all the data, you need to master the critical path and proper risk management as well as choosing the suitable milestones and appropriate timeline. It is important that the plan can adapt to unforeseen events, without having to redo the entire thing.

Milestones are used to monitor a progress, but there are drawbacks and limitations to their effectiveness. Milestones focus primarily on the progress of the critical path, and can therefore neglect non-critical activities. Resources are therefore focused on the critical activities and even moved from non-critical activities to critical ones to ensure that milestones are met. This can provide a false impression that a project is on schedule even though some activities are being ignored.

===Annotated bibliography===
• http://www.brighthubpm.com/project-planning/68427-successful-project-milestone-planning/
o Brighthubpm.com has some well-explained articles of basic milestone planning along with many other interesting articles regarding project management!

• http://www.brighthubpm.com/project-planning/68429-project-planning-typical-milestones/
o Another great, basic, article from Brighthubpm.com that gives examples of typical milestones.

• http://www.brighthubpm.com/templates-forms/128506-milestone-templates-for-excel-/?cid=parsely_rec
o Yet another article from Bighthubpm.com. This one is with and about templates for milestone planning! Gives some great and free tools for milestone planning.

• “Milestone Planning” Prepared by: Jörg Aldinger, IBIS 8 Matr. 152028 at the University of Applied Sciences, Heilbronn
o In opposition of Bighthubpm.com, this document explains much ore deeply how a milestone plan is used to its fullest!

====Additional links to other wiki-articles with additional and useful information:====
=====WBS=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Work_Breakdown_Structure_(WBS)

=====Gantt=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/The_Gantt_chart_and_the_usage_nowadays

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Gantt_Charts_as_a_Tool_for_Project_Management

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/The_Gantt_Chart

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Gantt_Chart

=====Critical path=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Critical_chain_project_management_(CCPM)

=====Risk management=====
http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Project_Risk_Management_and_Project_Risk_Management_Processes

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Management_of_risk

http://apppm.man.dtu.dk/index.php/Managing_Uncertainty_and_Risk_on_the_Project

The best milestone plan is simple but with depths!

2015-09-28T09:16:13Z

S113665:

''Wiki Abstract:''
'''The best milestone plan is simple but with depths'''

WORK IN PROGRESS; Sorry about the incomplete article, a bit of the application is missing and most of the limitations.
=Abstract=
The planning part of a project is essential to succeed. The milestone plan is one of the most used planning tools, but also one of the hardest to master! It may seem simple, but many project managers tend to ‘overuse’ milestones as a motivation tool, and therefore adding too many milestones, and labeling every minor task completion as a milestone. This ‘overuse’ often has a negative effect on the team members’ motivation, as it’ll cause loss of luster and distinctiveness, not to mention the time consumption!
That is just one of many mistakes and issues related to milestone planning.

This article will explore and explain the optimal usage of the tool. If done correctly, will the milestone plan act as an enormous motivation tool along with making sure the project is on track and on the way to success.
=Article=
==Big Idea==
A milestone is in its basic form a stone that tells you that you’re one mile down the road. They provide reference points, and are used to reassure travellers that they’re on track and to indicate distance travelled or distance remaining.

In a project a milestone define a completion of something. The only requirement is that the milestone is tied to a quantitative measurement, an internal or external deliverable, or a significant turning point or transition in the project. It is basically an important event marked on a timeline that are recognized when successfully reached.

The Milestone Plan serves as an essential guideline for every project, from big to small. It has a variety of purposes as it shows, how the intermediate products, or deliverables, build towards the final output and therefore gives an important overview. This is much needed, as this overview is required to keep the project under control and to identify upcoming bottlenecks and therefore giving the possibility of taking preventive actions well ahead of the critical point.
The Milestone Plan is furthermore used as motivation tool. A goal and a vision gets the team together going towards the same goal, on the same path, a plan keeps the team on that path, and the Milestone Plan combines these two and adds continuous motivation
A goal and a vision get the team together going towards the same objective. A plan gets the team on the same path and keeps them from going too far away from that path. A Milestone Plan combines these two and adds continuous motivation through sub-completions.
It is important to point out that the milestone plan is not to be mistaken for a replacement for any other tools, it is however a strong addition to any project and should never be left out. It can even take care of the entire planning spectrum of a project if done right; keep reading and you’ll soon know why and how!

==Application==
The milestone plan can be made when the project goal and deliverable has been settled and confirmed. It is often even taken in consideration in the fuzzy front end of a project, when negotiations, according to the bid and contract, are made with the customer as the deadlines is coming to an agreement and the plan is being visualized.
Setting the milestones
Placing milestones on the timeline is a difficult task. It is important to have an even plan with the exact amount of time and space between each milestone. This will promote motivation through sub-goals, by giving the team something to strive for. It is important that the milestones are not too far apart as the team members will forget about it, but it is equally important that they’re not too close as you’ll loose interest and not get the feeling of achieving something as too many minor events are celebrated.
For example, if you’re constructing a car, you don’t need to celebrate the delivery of a bolt for the wheel. Yet it would be a nice thing to celebrate when the wheels are on the car!

It is therefore important to define prober milestones for your specific project.
===Define a milestone===
Before you create the timeline with your events you need to determine what kind of milestones you want to “celebrate” and what kind of milestones that makes sense for your project.

Milestones can be grouped under several classifications and each defines an event in its own kind.

▪ Phase transitions occur when the project goes from one phase to another. For example if a product goes from designing to construction a prototype (from software to hardware). You can basically divide phase transitions into six stages: information gathering, or marketing research, planning, design, development, testing, and delivery. Each transition from one stage to another is a viable milestone!

• Rates of total completion are commonly used milestones when the project involves repetition without sequential advancement to the next stage. A good example is a training exercise in which milestones are set for the percentage of employees fully trained or certified, e.g., 25, 50, 75, and 100 percent. This gives the benefits of giving a clearer understanding of the process of the project and understandable by all stakeholders regarding their involvement.

• Performance recognition milestones are achievements that are not directly connected to the advancement of the project, but recognize the quality of the work performed. For example, in the construction of a plant, a typical milestone would be to recognize periodically that employees have logged in a certain number of work hours without a single safety incident.

• Deliverables represents tangible evidence of progress towards the project’s goals. It is therefore a commonly used milestone, as it is also easy to determine. It is by far the most popular choice for a milestone because it represents tangible evidence of progress towards the project's goals.

• Task completion has its resembles with deliverables but define a completion of a specific task. A task milestone could be the completion of the roof on a building, and another to finish the plumbing and so on. This is easy applicable and gives a great overview of the project, not as easy interpreted as the ‘rates of completion’ milestone though, but provides more opportunities regarding the degree of details. It is of great understanding used internal in a project.

A perfect plan for motivation contains some of everything!

You will also need to keep in mind, that milestones needs to be somehow challenging and carry a degree of risk for failure. This is done to inspire your team members to stay motivated and feel a greater sense of accomplishment.
===Creating the plan===
Now that the preferable milestones have been set on the start-to-finish-timeline, you will need to determine the degree of details for each milestone shown on the plan. This is however the part that is hard to master and very time-consuming. It is important to get the right level of details for the user, but not too much as the plan will loose its ability to provide overview.
The overlook of the milestone plan needs the exact amount of information valid to that specific user/reader.
The best Milestone Plan can fit onto a single page!

Large and complex projects often needs more than one Milestone Plan, as a single plan might not satisfy all the planning needs on the strategic level. In this case “Subsidiary milestone plans” are used. Each Milestone on the master plan goes into a Milestone Plan of its own in a deeper level. For example there is a master Milestone Plan for a car itself, with milestones such as having the chassis made, installing the engine and so on. When a stakeholder is looking on the master plan to see when the wheels are getting fitted, they don’t care about the subsidiary milestone of the tire getting fitted to the rim. This is however a milestone on the next level, the deeper version only containing milestones for the wheel itself.
This way of doing Milestone Plans is made by incorporating the WBS.

==Limitations==
▪ Limitations: critically reflect on the tool/concept/theory. When possible, substantiate your claims with literature

Looking at bigger projects, for example delivery-projects as constructions of all sorts, buildings, ships, it does of course has to be a unique production as it would otherwise just be a factory task.
It might seem “simple” to create the Milestone plan in these conditions, as you have the goals set and a contract defined that contains specific dates where deliverables needs to be delivered and a logic order for when tasks needs to be done. It is however here you’ll see the biggest advantage of the Milestone Plan but also the biggest pitfalls

The Milestone Planning tool is easy to use but hard to master.
Hard to master
Too detailed (too many depths)
Bolt for the car, too detailed
Annotated bibliography
Annotated bibliography: Provide key references (3-10), where a reader can find additional information on the subject. Summarize and outline the relevance of each reference to the topic. (around 100 words per reference). The bibliography is not counted in the suggested 3000 word target length of the article.

Talk:Application of Antifragility in Project Management

2015-09-22T21:41:23Z

S113665:

Josef: Hello, I really like your idea of looking at antifragility and its application in project management. However, I am not entirely sure if your discussion of "simulating failure scenarios" and "upside/downside risks" fits the heading. If you look at our PMI whitepaper, you will find a few categories/principles of Antifragiltiy and their application to project management. Nassim Taleb's book (which I reckon you must read if you were to write about Antifragility) contains many more possible points of "connection". I suggest to take that as a "point of departure", and see what you can apply how to project management.

=Feedback of s141506, Reviewer 2=

== Structure ==

* I didn't find really any grammar mistakes which is good.
* Are the first chapters part of abstract or introduction or what.. You could elaborate little bit more with headings in the start so it would be easier to reader to follow the text.
* In the article there is often mentioned number 1 and then bulletpoints. For example the chapter''' The definition of a good system is '''. Is it suppose be like this and also the other same kind of chapters?
*Maybe samekind conclusion in the end would wrap the text better together. Now it is little bit scattered in different parts.

== Content==

* Having the aviation of one example for antifragility is very good. It gives reader immediately better understanding of the whole consept.
*Pictures are nice looking and simple but still informative. Reader can easily understand what write have wanted to show with the picture.
* Like I wrote in structure that try to use more headings.
* You have used much New York Times articles as reference, it can be quite one-sided.

== Overall==

* Good article about subject that for me personal didn't have much information.

==(S142899_I am not aware of whether I am reviewer ½ or 3)==

*Summary of the references are missing at the end.

A)
*Generally the level of grammar structure is in a good level. Some expression mistakes were found though for example:(….is not in balance with the laws of nature.
….. is fragile, repetition of the word “volatility”)– in the first paragraph expression mistakes
*“The projects of our time are designed for stability and can be defined as highly complex, pursuit of effectivity and interdependency.” missing reference probably
*”For the past 2-3 decades, we have continued the pursuit of efficiency” - who we?
*“What we should do, is build a system that is not fragile to these events.”- comma in the wrong place
B) missing reference to the figure 1 and remember to mention it in the text before the figure
* Why table of context is in the middle of the text?
*Under the paragraph Create Project Portfolios that can Collectively Learn from Others’ Mistakes:
“The definition of a good system is:
"1."
 The amount of errors within the system is small
“remove the number “1”.”
*” Concerning antifragility in management of portfolios, programs and projects. “ is unnecessary”
*In the BMW example insert reference not only to the text but also to the figure 2.
*Under the “Application” paragraph’s I would probably insert also the other examples that you use in the article in order to make this paragraph more concrete.
* find reference for the production of the Lupo mentioned in this paragraph as well.
*The fact that you are using so many quotes adds to the article but you could try to eliminate them into 2-3 max since it reduces reader’s “reading flow” at some point.

C)
*I would recommend to spend a little more time in reviewing the intro and the closing part of the article in order to provide a more solid base for the reader with more details and raping up of the scope of the article
*Adding subheading for example naming the different cases would also add to the context of the article

=Reviewer 3: s113665=

* The entire article is very well written with a good use of punctuation and a prober technically language.
* The first section of the article is quite long.
** Add a title.
** Consider dividing it into a couple of subtitles as well.
* You have two sections named ‘Application’.
** As it however may be the prober way of division, it still adds unnecessary confusion.
* Nice graphics with good relevance to the subject!
* Well-made ‘References’ section!
** (I’m stealing some of that for my own article ;))
* There maaaay be a bit too many references in the text, and some of them are also quite extensive and could be shortened without loosing the ‘article’- and dramatic effect.
** Would prefer to have the longer ones interoperated and incorporated in the main text instead of being an independent section in quotation marks.

There’s not much else to add, as it is by far the most finished article I’ve seen and reviewed! The article is neither in the need of additional proofreading, as there are next to no spelling-/grammar-/punctuation errors!
Bottom line it is a good article and I wish you good luck for the final review and grading!

Talk:Early warning signals in project management

2015-09-22T21:18:29Z

S113665: /* Reviewer 2: s113665 */

Kristine:
It is an interesting subject you have chosen. I am not exactly certain I understand the specific tool you are talking about, but it might very well be much clearer in the final wiki feed.
Remember to follow the structure as mentioned on the main page.

=Feedback by S141506, Reviewer 1=

I notice that you are not yet done with the article which is totally fine :) I will try to give you feedback on the material that you have the best way as I can.

==Stucture==

* I think it is good and chronologial structured. The pictures helps to understand the idea behind the text.
* The language is overall good but there is in somepoint grammar mistakes in the text. Those are good to correct before the final handin.
* The chapter "Main group of project problems" looks confusing that should made look different.
* References and bibliography are missing but they are probaply on their way...You have authors writen in the text, so remember to also have the reference at the bottom.
* The Barriers of identification looks nice.
* The article will also come more clear when it is finished, now it is still little bit unbalanced.

==Content==

* The abstract tells in nicely all what is needed know about the article.
*Some sentences are very long and it makes them confusing, for example '''"The complexity and uncertainly in the development of the process of the project make difficult to achieve the requirements adapted in the early stage of the project and not have a failure." ''' These kind should be written in more understandable way.

=Reviewer 2: s113665=

* The abstract is simply great! Well written and really catches the reader. I actually want to keep reading in this late hour of a long day! ;)
* My view of the article hasn’t changed after reading the rest! It’s a good article with good language and a very nice structure.
* The graphics is a nice touch as well.
* Minor spelling errors and typical draft-mistakes.
** Example; 2nd sentence in ‘Introduction’. ‘Apply’ should be ‘applied’
* Along with the bullet point above, there are a few sentences that are too long.
** Consider rephrasing those while proofreading it!
* Along with the (hopefully) upcoming ‘references’ and ‘ bibliography’, it would be a nice and final touch to add a conclusion section of some sort.

A single proofread and maybe adding of the conclusion will make it a nice and well-defined article! …Of course you need to finish it as well... ☺ happy writing and read you later!

=Reviewer 3: S141543=

* This is an interesting idea to write about
* I do not understand what sentence two in the abstract means, possibly it should be re-written
* Otherwise, the abstract looks good to me
* Project management chapter seems to be more about a specific project than the concept of project management
* The planning section is well done in my opinion
* Could come up with an example of a decision that has to be made in the decision making phase.
* The article needs references
* The word structure in the article is a little confusing at times
* I do realize that this article is a work in progress

Talk:Early warning signals in project management

2015-09-22T21:18:13Z

S113665:

Kristine:
It is an interesting subject you have chosen. I am not exactly certain I understand the specific tool you are talking about, but it might very well be much clearer in the final wiki feed.
Remember to follow the structure as mentioned on the main page.

=Feedback by S141506, Reviewer 1=

I notice that you are not yet done with the article which is totally fine :) I will try to give you feedback on the material that you have the best way as I can.

==Stucture==

* I think it is good and chronologial structured. The pictures helps to understand the idea behind the text.
* The language is overall good but there is in somepoint grammar mistakes in the text. Those are good to correct before the final handin.
* The chapter "Main group of project problems" looks confusing that should made look different.
* References and bibliography are missing but they are probaply on their way...You have authors writen in the text, so remember to also have the reference at the bottom.
* The Barriers of identification looks nice.
* The article will also come more clear when it is finished, now it is still little bit unbalanced.

==Content==

* The abstract tells in nicely all what is needed know about the article.
*Some sentences are very long and it makes them confusing, for example '''"The complexity and uncertainly in the development of the process of the project make difficult to achieve the requirements adapted in the early stage of the project and not have a failure." ''' These kind should be written in more understandable way.

=Reviewer 2: s113665=
Early warning signals in project management
* The abstract is simply great! Well written and really catches the reader. I actually want to keep reading in this late hour of a long day! ;)
* My view of the article hasn’t changed after reading the rest! It’s a good article with good language and a very nice structure.
* The graphics is a nice touch as well.
* Minor spelling errors and typical draft-mistakes.
** Example; 2nd sentence in ‘Introduction’. ‘Apply’ should be ‘applied’
* Along with the bullet point above, there are a few sentences that are too long.
** Consider rephrasing those while proofreading it!
* Along with the (hopefully) upcoming ‘references’ and ‘ bibliography’, it would be a nice and final touch to add a conclusion section of some sort.

A single proofread and maybe adding of the conclusion will make it a nice and well-defined article! …Of course you need to finish it as well... ☺ happy writing and read you later!

=Reviewer 3: S141543=

* This is an interesting idea to write about
* I do not understand what sentence two in the abstract means, possibly it should be re-written
* Otherwise, the abstract looks good to me
* Project management chapter seems to be more about a specific project than the concept of project management
* The planning section is well done in my opinion
* Could come up with an example of a decision that has to be made in the decision making phase.
* The article needs references
* The word structure in the article is a little confusing at times
* I do realize that this article is a work in progress

Talk:Development phase of idea to project

2015-09-22T20:46:51Z

S113665:

Mette: I like this topic, however, I suggest to focus on a specific area, otherwise, your article may end up a bit generic, and not as interesting as it could be because it is too broad. So think about tools for fine-tune ideas for projects and then pick one you can really go into details with.

=Reviewer 1: s113665=
* Very nice structure! Nice overview and easy accessibility.
* Looks good with the graphics.
* Language is kind of hard to understand.
** A few sentences should be rephrased. I would recommend having that in the back of your head when you’re proofreading it.
* Minor spelling errors
* Missing words
** Such as ‘the’ and ‘it’
* Punctuation (long sentences).
** Try splitting some of them up and perhaps rewrite a few of them.
* The article seems a bit generic caused by the broad approach.
** The limitation and conclusion may, however, help this issue on the right path, looking forward to revisit it!
* Even though you basically use the method recommended, I have a hard time follow the ‘red-line’ through the current article (related to the bullet point above).
** Perhaps write a ‘sub-conclusion’ within each chapter of the current article, to relate that given chapter to the main subject.

A single proofread and adding of the ‘red-line’ throughout the article will make it a nice and well-defined article! …Of course you need to finish it as well... ☺ happy writing and read you later!

=Reviewer 2: S141543=

* This is an interesting idea to write about
* I do not understand what sentence two in the abstract means, possibly it should be re-written
* Otherwise, the abstract looks good to me
* Project management chapter seems to be more about a specific project than the concept of project management
* The planning section is well done in my opinion
* Could come up with an example of a decision that has to be made in the decision making phase.
* The article needs references
* The word structure in the article is a little confusing at times
* I do realize that this article is a work in progress

=Reviewer 3: Lea=
*You are following the method article. Unfortunately, I am not able to follow the thread of your article. I am not sure if you are done writing yet, but in my opinion there has to be a higher focus on where you want to lead the reader.
*The subject sounds interesting and it applies to the course. As mentioned above the structure could hace more precision and guidance in order for the article to have more meaning.
*Grammar is good. Some sentences are too long for me (personally) to read. Maybe split some of the sentences to let the reader understand the text better.
*The figures you have used correspond to the text and make sense.
*Concerning the length, you are on a good way, but there is still room left to fill around 3000 words.
*The abstract has a good length but does not give clarity about the article. Maybe try to explain the table of contents to the reader.
*Sources and Annotated bibliography: Up to now there are no sources. Make sure to add sources in order to avoid plagiarism.

Talk:Development phase of idea to project

2015-09-22T20:46:19Z

S113665:

Mette: I like this topic, however, I suggest to focus on a specific area, otherwise, your article may end up a bit generic, and not as interesting as it could be because it is too broad. So think about tools for fine-tune ideas for projects and then pick one you can really go into details with.

=Reviewer 1: s113665=
*• Very nice structure! Nice overview and easy accessibility.
*• Looks good with the graphics.
• Language is kind of hard to understand.
o A few sentences should be rephrased. I would recommend having that in the back of your head when you’re proofreading it.
• Minor spelling errors
• Missing words
o Such as ‘the’ and ‘it’
• Punctuation (long sentences).
o Try splitting some of them up and perhaps rewrite a few of them.
• The article seems a bit generic caused by the broad approach.
o The limitation and conclusion may, however, help this issue on the right path, looking forward to revisit it!
• Even though you basically use the method recommended, I have a hard time follow the ‘red-line’ through the current article (related to the bullet point above).
o Perhaps write a ‘sub-conclusion’ within each chapter of the current article, to relate that given chapter to the main subject.

A single proofread and adding of the ‘red-line’ throughout the article will make it a nice and well-defined article! …Of course you need to finish it as well... ☺ happy writing and read you later!

=Reviewer 2: S141543=

* This is an interesting idea to write about
* I do not understand what sentence two in the abstract means, possibly it should be re-written
* Otherwise, the abstract looks good to me
* Project management chapter seems to be more about a specific project than the concept of project management
* The planning section is well done in my opinion
* Could come up with an example of a decision that has to be made in the decision making phase.
* The article needs references
* The word structure in the article is a little confusing at times
* I do realize that this article is a work in progress

=Reviewer 3: Lea=
*You are following the method article. Unfortunately, I am not able to follow the thread of your article. I am not sure if you are done writing yet, but in my opinion there has to be a higher focus on where you want to lead the reader.
*The subject sounds interesting and it applies to the course. As mentioned above the structure could hace more precision and guidance in order for the article to have more meaning.
*Grammar is good. Some sentences are too long for me (personally) to read. Maybe split some of the sentences to let the reader understand the text better.
*The figures you have used correspond to the text and make sense.
*Concerning the length, you are on a good way, but there is still room left to fill around 3000 words.
*The abstract has a good length but does not give clarity about the article. Maybe try to explain the table of contents to the reader.
*Sources and Annotated bibliography: Up to now there are no sources. Make sure to add sources in order to avoid plagiarism.

Talk:Development phase of idea to project

2015-09-22T20:45:25Z

S113665:

Mette: I like this topic, however, I suggest to focus on a specific area, otherwise, your article may end up a bit generic, and not as interesting as it could be because it is too broad. So think about tools for fine-tune ideas for projects and then pick one you can really go into details with.

=Reviewer 1: s113665=
• Very nice structure! Nice overview and easy accessibility.
• Looks good with the graphics.
• Language is kind of hard to understand.
o A few sentences should be rephrased. I would recommend having that in the back of your head when you’re proofreading it.
• Minor spelling errors
• Missing words
o Such as ‘the’ and ‘it’
• Punctuation (long sentences).
o Try splitting some of them up and perhaps rewrite a few of them.
• The article seems a bit generic caused by the broad approach.
o The limitation and conclusion may, however, help this issue on the right path, looking forward to revisit it!
• Even though you basically use the method recommended, I have a hard time follow the ‘red-line’ through the current article (related to the bullet point above).
o Perhaps write a ‘sub-conclusion’ within each chapter of the current article, to relate that given chapter to the main subject.

A single proofread and adding of the ‘red-line’ throughout the article will make it a nice and well-defined article! …Of course you need to finish it as well... ☺ happy writing and read you later!

=Reviewer 2: S141543=

* This is an interesting idea to write about
* I do not understand what sentence two in the abstract means, possibly it should be re-written
* Otherwise, the abstract looks good to me
* Project management chapter seems to be more about a specific project than the concept of project management
* The planning section is well done in my opinion
* Could come up with an example of a decision that has to be made in the decision making phase.
* The article needs references
* The word structure in the article is a little confusing at times
* I do realize that this article is a work in progress

=Reviewer 3: Lea=
*You are following the method article. Unfortunately, I am not able to follow the thread of your article. I am not sure if you are done writing yet, but in my opinion there has to be a higher focus on where you want to lead the reader.
*The subject sounds interesting and it applies to the course. As mentioned above the structure could hace more precision and guidance in order for the article to have more meaning.
*Grammar is good. Some sentences are too long for me (personally) to read. Maybe split some of the sentences to let the reader understand the text better.
*The figures you have used correspond to the text and make sense.
*Concerning the length, you are on a good way, but there is still room left to fill around 3000 words.
*The abstract has a good length but does not give clarity about the article. Maybe try to explain the table of contents to the reader.
*Sources and Annotated bibliography: Up to now there are no sources. Make sure to add sources in order to avoid plagiarism.

The best milestone plan is simple but with depths!

2015-09-22T12:26:01Z

S113665:

''Wiki Abstract:''
'''The best milestone plan is simple but with depths'''

WORK IN PROGRESS; Sorry about the incomplete article, a bit of the application is missing and most of the limitations.
==Abstract==
The planning part of a project is essential to succeed. The milestone plan is one of the most used planning tools, but also one of the hardest to master! It may seem simple, but many project managers tend to ‘overuse’ milestones as a motivation tool, and therefore adding too many milestones, and labeling every minor task completion as a milestone. This ‘overuse’ often has a negative effect on the team members’ motivation, as it’ll cause loss of luster and distinctiveness, not to mention the time consumption!
That is just one of many mistakes and issues related to milestone planning.

This article will explore and explain the optimal usage of the tool. If done correctly, will the milestone plan act as an enormous motivation tool along with making sure the project is on track and on the way to success.
==Article==
==Big Idea==
A milestone is in its basic form a stone that tells you that you’re one mile down the road. They provide reference points, and are used to reassure travellers that they’re on track and to indicate distance travelled or distance remaining.

In a project a milestone define a completion of something. The only requirement is that the milestone is tied to a quantitative measurement, an internal or external deliverable, or a significant turning point or transition in the project. It is basically an important event marked on a timeline that are recognized when successfully reached.

The Milestone Plan serves as an essential guideline for every project, from big to small. It has a variety of purposes as it shows, how the intermediate products, or deliverables, build towards the final output and therefore gives an important overview. This is much needed, as this overview is required to keep the project under control and to identify upcoming bottlenecks and therefore giving the possibility of taking preventive actions well ahead of the critical point.
The Milestone Plan is furthermore used as motivation tool. A goal and a vision gets the team together going towards the same goal, on the same path, a plan keeps the team on that path, and the Milestone Plan combines these two and adds continuous motivation
A goal and a vision get the team together going towards the same objective. A plan gets the team on the same path and keeps them from going too far away from that path. A Milestone Plan combines these two and adds continuous motivation through sub-completions.
It is important to point out that the milestone plan is not to be mistaken for a replacement for any other tools, it is however a strong addition to any project and should never be left out. It can even take care of the entire planning spectrum of a project if done right; keep reading and you’ll soon know why and how!

==Application==
The milestone plan can be made when the project goal and deliverable has been settled and confirmed. It is often even taken in consideration in the fuzzy front end of a project, when negotiations, according to the bid and contract, are made with the customer as the deadlines is coming to an agreement and the plan is being visualized.
Setting the milestones
Placing milestones on the timeline is a difficult task. It is important to have an even plan with the exact amount of time and space between each milestone. This will promote motivation through sub-goals, by giving the team something to strive for. It is important that the milestones are not too far apart as the team members will forget about it, but it is equally important that they’re not too close as you’ll loose interest and not get the feeling of achieving something as too many minor events are celebrated.
For example, if you’re constructing a car, you don’t need to celebrate the delivery of a bolt for the wheel. Yet it would be a nice thing to celebrate when the wheels are on the car!

It is therefore important to define prober milestones for your specific project.
==Define a milestone==
Before you create the timeline with your events you need to determine what kind of milestones you want to “celebrate” and what kind of milestones that makes sense for your project.

Milestones can be grouped under several classifications and each defines an event in its own kind.

▪ Phase transitions occur when the project goes from one phase to another. For example if a product goes from designing to construction a prototype (from software to hardware). You can basically divide phase transitions into six stages: information gathering, or marketing research, planning, design, development, testing, and delivery. Each transition from one stage to another is a viable milestone!

• Rates of total completion are commonly used milestones when the project involves repetition without sequential advancement to the next stage. A good example is a training exercise in which milestones are set for the percentage of employees fully trained or certified, e.g., 25, 50, 75, and 100 percent. This gives the benefits of giving a clearer understanding of the process of the project and understandable by all stakeholders regarding their involvement.

• Performance recognition milestones are achievements that are not directly connected to the advancement of the project, but recognize the quality of the work performed. For example, in the construction of a plant, a typical milestone would be to recognize periodically that employees have logged in a certain number of work hours without a single safety incident.

• Deliverables represents tangible evidence of progress towards the project’s goals. It is therefore a commonly used milestone, as it is also easy to determine. It is by far the most popular choice for a milestone because it represents tangible evidence of progress towards the project's goals.

• Task completion has its resembles with deliverables but define a completion of a specific task. A task milestone could be the completion of the roof on a building, and another to finish the plumbing and so on. This is easy applicable and gives a great overview of the project, not as easy interpreted as the ‘rates of completion’ milestone though, but provides more opportunities regarding the degree of details. It is of great understanding used internal in a project.

A perfect plan for motivation contains some of everything!

You will also need to keep in mind, that milestones needs to be somehow challenging and carry a degree of risk for failure. This is done to inspire your team members to stay motivated and feel a greater sense of accomplishment.
==Creating the plan==
Now that the preferable milestones have been set on the start-to-finish-timeline, you will need to determine the degree of details for each milestone shown on the plan. This is however the part that is hard to master and very time-consuming. It is important to get the right level of details for the user, but not too much as the plan will loose its ability to provide overview.
The overlook of the milestone plan needs the exact amount of information valid to that specific user/reader.
The best Milestone Plan can fit onto a single page!

Large and complex projects often needs more than one Milestone Plan, as a single plan might not satisfy all the planning needs on the strategic level. In this case “Subsidiary milestone plans” are used. Each Milestone on the master plan goes into a Milestone Plan of its own in a deeper level. For example there is a master Milestone Plan for a car itself, with milestones such as having the chassis made, installing the engine and so on. When a stakeholder is looking on the master plan to see when the wheels are getting fitted, they don’t care about the subsidiary milestone of the tire getting fitted to the rim. This is however a milestone on the next level, the deeper version only containing milestones for the wheel itself.
This way of doing Milestone Plans is made by incorporating the WBS.

==Limitations==
▪ Limitations: critically reflect on the tool/concept/theory. When possible, substantiate your claims with literature

Looking at bigger projects, for example delivery-projects as constructions of all sorts, buildings, ships, it does of course has to be a unique production as it would otherwise just be a factory task.
It might seem “simple” to create the Milestone plan in these conditions, as you have the goals set and a contract defined that contains specific dates where deliverables needs to be delivered and a logic order for when tasks needs to be done. It is however here you’ll see the biggest advantage of the Milestone Plan but also the biggest pitfalls

The Milestone Planning tool is easy to use but hard to master.
Hard to master
Too detailed (too many depths)
Bolt for the car, too detailed
Annotated bibliography
Annotated bibliography: Provide key references (3-10), where a reader can find additional information on the subject. Summarize and outline the relevance of each reference to the topic. (around 100 words per reference). The bibliography is not counted in the suggested 3000 word target length of the article.

The best milestone plan is simple but with depths!

2015-09-22T11:00:24Z

S113665:

''Wiki Abstract:''
'''The best milestone plan is simple but with depths'''

WORK IN PROGRESS; Sorry about the incomplete article, a bit of the application is missing and most of the limitations.

==Abstract==
The planning part of a project is essential to succeed. The milestone plan is one of the most used planning tools, but also one of the hardest to master! It may seem simple, but many project managers tend to ‘overuse’ milestones as a motivation tool, and therefore adding too many milestones, and labeling every minor task completion as a milestone. This ‘overuse’ often has a negative effect on the team members’ motivation, as it’ll cause loss of luster and distinctiveness., not to mention the time consumption!
That is just one of many mistakes and issues related to milestone planning.

This article will explore and explain the optimal usage of the tool. If done correctly, will the milestone plan act as an enormous motivation tool along with making sure the project is on track and on the way to success.
Article
==Big Idea==
A milestone is in its basic form a stone that tells you that you’re one mile down the road. They provide reference points, and are used to reassure travellers that they’re on track and to indicate distance travelled or distance remaining.

In a project a milestone define a completion of something. The only requirement is that the milestone is tied to a quantitative measurement, an internal or external deliverable, or a significant turning point or transition in the project. It is basically an important event marked on a timeline that are recognized when successfully reached.

The Milestone Plan serves as an essential guideline for every project, from big to small. It has a variety of purposes as it shows, how the intermediate products, or deliverables, build towards the final output and therefore gives an important overview. This is much needed, as this overview is required to keep the project under control and to identify upcoming bottlenecks and therefore giving the possibility of taking preventive actions well ahead of the critical point.
The Milestone Plan is furthermore used as motivation tool. A goal and a vision gets the team together going towards the same goal, on the same path, a plan keeps the team on that path, and the Milestone Plan combines these two and adds continuous motivation
A goal and a vision get the team together going towards the same objective. A plan gets the team on the same path and keeps them from going too far away from that path. A Milestone Plan combines these two and adds continuous motivation through sub-completions.
It is important to point out that the milestone plan is not to be mistaken for a replacement for any other tools, it is however a strong addition to any project and should never be left out. It can even take care of the entire planning spectrum of a project if done right; keep reading and you’ll soon know why and how!

Consider the possibilities of combining the milestone plan with a WBS and a Gantt chart, all in one?
==Application==
The milestone plan can be made when the project goal and deliverable has been settled and confirmed. It is often even taken in consideration in the fuzzy front end of a project, when negotiations, according to the bid and contract, are made with the customer as the deadlines is coming to an agreement and the plan is being visualized.

Before you create the timeline with your events you need to determine what kind of milestones you want to “celebrate” and what kind of milestones that makes sense, as it is important to have an even plan with the exact amount of time and space between each milestone. This will promote motivation through sub-goals, by giving the team something to strive for. It is important that the milestones are not too far apart as the team members will forget about it, but it is equally important that they’re not too close as you’ll loose interest and not get the feeling of achieving something as too many minor things are celebrated.
For example, if you’re constructing a car

Here are some different types of events that can define a milestone:

▪ '''Phase transitions''' occur when the project goes from one phase to another. For example if a product goes from designing to construction a prototype (from software to hardware). You can basically divide phase transitions into six stages: information gathering, or marketing research, planning, design, development, testing, and delivery. Each transition from one stage to another is a viable milestone!

• '''Rates of total completion''' are commonly used milestones when the project involves repetition without sequential advancement to the next stage. A good example is a training exercise in which milestones are set for the percentage of employees fully trained or certified, e.g., 25, 50, 75, and 100 percent. This gives the benefits of giving a clearer understanding of the process of the project and understandable by all stakeholders regarding their involvement.

• '''Performance recognition''' milestones are achievements that are not directly connected to the advancement of the project, but recognize the quality of the work performed. For example, in the construction of a plant, a typical milestone would be to recognize periodically that employees have logged in a certain number of work hours without a single safety incident.

• '''Deliverables''' represents tangible evidence of progress towards the project’s goals. It is therefore a commonly used milestone, as it is also easy to determine. It is by far the most popular choice for a milestone because it represents tangible evidence of progress towards the project's goals.

• '''Task completion''' has its resembles with deliverables but define a completion of a specific task. A task milestone could be the completion of the roof on a building, and another to finish the plumbing and so on. This is easy applicable and gives a great overview of the project, not as easy interpreted as the ‘rates of completion’ milestone though, but provides more opportunities regarding the degree of details. It is of great understanding used internal in a project.

A perfect plan for motivation contains some of everything!

Now that the preferable milestones have been set on the start to finish timeline, you will need to determine the degree of details for each milestone.
This is however the part that is hard to master and very time-consuming. It is important to get the right level of details for the user, but not too much as the plan will loose its ability to provide overview.
The overlook of the milestone plan needs the exact amount of information valid to that specific user/reader.
For example, you do not need to know the delivery of metal for the
If your project is to construct a car

==Limitations==
▪ Limitations: critically reflect on the tool/concept/theory. When possible, substantiate your claims with literature

Looking at bigger projects, for example delivery-projects as constructions of all sorts, buildings, ships, it does of course has to be a unique production as it would otherwise just be a factory task.
It might seem “simple” to create the Milestone plan in these conditions, as you have the goals set and a contract defined that contains specific dates where deliverables needs to be delivered and a logic order for when tasks needs to be done. It is however here you’ll see the biggest advantage of the Milestone Plan but also the biggest pitfalls

The Milestone Planning tool is easy to use but hard to master.
Hard to master
Too detailed (too many depths)
Bolt for the car, too detailed
Annotated bibliography
Annotated bibliography: Provide key references (3-10), where a reader can find additional information on the subject. Summarize and outline the relevance of each reference to the topic. (around 100 words per reference). The bibliography is not counted in the suggested 3000 word target length of the article.

The best milestone plan is simple but with depths!

2015-09-22T10:58:31Z

S113665:

''Wiki Abstract:''
'''The best milestone plan is simple but with depths'''

==Abstract==
The planning part of a project is essential to succeed. The milestone plan is one of the most used planning tools, but also one of the hardest to master! It may seem simple, but many project managers tend to ‘overuse’ milestones as a motivation tool, and therefore adding too many milestones, and labeling every minor task completion as a milestone. This ‘overuse’ often has a negative effect on the team members’ motivation, as it’ll cause loss of luster and distinctiveness., not to mention the time consumption!
That is just one of many mistakes and issues related to milestone planning.

This article will explore and explain the optimal usage of the tool. If done correctly, will the milestone plan act as an enormous motivation tool along with making sure the project is on track and on the way to success.
Article
==Big Idea==
A milestone is in its basic form a stone that tells you that you’re one mile down the road. They provide reference points, and are used to reassure travellers that they’re on track and to indicate distance travelled or distance remaining.

In a project a milestone define a completion of something. The only requirement is that the milestone is tied to a quantitative measurement, an internal or external deliverable, or a significant turning point or transition in the project. It is basically an important event marked on a timeline that are recognized when successfully reached.

The Milestone Plan serves as an essential guideline for every project, from big to small. It has a variety of purposes as it shows, how the intermediate products, or deliverables, build towards the final output and therefore gives an important overview. This is much needed, as this overview is required to keep the project under control and to identify upcoming bottlenecks and therefore giving the possibility of taking preventive actions well ahead of the critical point.
The Milestone Plan is furthermore used as motivation tool. A goal and a vision gets the team together going towards the same goal, on the same path, a plan keeps the team on that path, and the Milestone Plan combines these two and adds continuous motivation
A goal and a vision get the team together going towards the same objective. A plan gets the team on the same path and keeps them from going too far away from that path. A Milestone Plan combines these two and adds continuous motivation through sub-completions.
It is important to point out that the milestone plan is not to be mistaken for a replacement for any other tools, it is however a strong addition to any project and should never be left out. It can even take care of the entire planning spectrum of a project if done right; keep reading and you’ll soon know why and how!

Consider the possibilities of combining the milestone plan with a WBS and a Gantt chart, all in one?
==Application==
The milestone plan can be made when the project goal and deliverable has been settled and confirmed. It is often even taken in consideration in the fuzzy front end of a project, when negotiations, according to the bid and contract, are made with the customer as the deadlines is coming to an agreement and the plan is being visualized.

Before you create the timeline with your events you need to determine what kind of milestones you want to “celebrate” and what kind of milestones that makes sense, as it is important to have an even plan with the exact amount of time and space between each milestone. This will promote motivation through sub-goals, by giving the team something to strive for. It is important that the milestones are not too far apart as the team members will forget about it, but it is equally important that they’re not too close as you’ll loose interest and not get the feeling of achieving something as too many minor things are celebrated.
For example, if you’re constructing a car

Here are some different types of events that can define a milestone:

▪ '''Phase transitions''' occur when the project goes from one phase to another. For example if a product goes from designing to construction a prototype (from software to hardware). You can basically divide phase transitions into six stages: information gathering, or marketing research, planning, design, development, testing, and delivery. Each transition from one stage to another is a viable milestone!

• '''Rates of total completion''' are commonly used milestones when the project involves repetition without sequential advancement to the next stage. A good example is a training exercise in which milestones are set for the percentage of employees fully trained or certified, e.g., 25, 50, 75, and 100 percent. This gives the benefits of giving a clearer understanding of the process of the project and understandable by all stakeholders regarding their involvement.

• '''Performance recognition''' milestones are achievements that are not directly connected to the advancement of the project, but recognize the quality of the work performed. For example, in the construction of a plant, a typical milestone would be to recognize periodically that employees have logged in a certain number of work hours without a single safety incident.

• '''Deliverables''' represents tangible evidence of progress towards the project’s goals. It is therefore a commonly used milestone, as it is also easy to determine. It is by far the most popular choice for a milestone because it represents tangible evidence of progress towards the project's goals.

• '''Task completion''' has its resembles with deliverables but define a completion of a specific task. A task milestone could be the completion of the roof on a building, and another to finish the plumbing and so on. This is easy applicable and gives a great overview of the project, not as easy interpreted as the ‘rates of completion’ milestone though, but provides more opportunities regarding the degree of details. It is of great understanding used internal in a project.

A perfect plan for motivation contains some of everything!

Now that the preferable milestones have been set on the start to finish timeline, you will need to determine the degree of details for each milestone.
This is however the part that is hard to master and very time-consuming. It is important to get the right level of details for the user, but not too much as the plan will loose its ability to provide overview.
The overlook of the milestone plan needs the exact amount of information valid to that specific user/reader.
For example, you do not need to know the delivery of metal for the
If your project is to construct a car

==Limitations==
▪ Limitations: critically reflect on the tool/concept/theory. When possible, substantiate your claims with literature

Looking at bigger projects, for example delivery-projects as constructions of all sorts, buildings, ships, it does of course has to be a unique production as it would otherwise just be a factory task.
It might seem “simple” to create the Milestone plan in these conditions, as you have the goals set and a contract defined that contains specific dates where deliverables needs to be delivered and a logic order for when tasks needs to be done. It is however here you’ll see the biggest advantage of the Milestone Plan but also the biggest pitfalls

The Milestone Planning tool is easy to use but hard to master.
Hard to master
Too detailed (too many depths)
Bolt for the car, too detailed
Annotated bibliography
Annotated bibliography: Provide key references (3-10), where a reader can find additional information on the subject. Summarize and outline the relevance of each reference to the topic. (around 100 words per reference). The bibliography is not counted in the suggested 3000 word target length of the article.

The best milestone plan is simple but with depths!

2015-09-21T13:48:17Z

S113665:

''Wiki Abstract:''
'''The best milestone plan is simple but with depths'''

The planning part of a project is essential to succeed. The milestone plan is one of the most used planning tools, but also one of the hardest to master! It may seem simple, but many project managers tend to ‘overuse’ milestones as a motivation tool, and therefore adding too many milestones, and labeling every minor task completion as a milestone. This ‘overuse’ often has a negative effect on the team members’ motivation, as it’ll cause loss of luster and distinctiveness., not to mention the time consumption!
That is just one of many mistakes and issues related to milestone planning.

This article will explore and explain the optimal usage of the tool. If done correctly, will the milestone plan act as an enormous motivation tool along with making sure the project is on track and on the way to success.

==Introduction==

The best milestone plan is simple but with depths!

2015-09-15T17:20:47Z

S113665: Created page with "''Wiki Abstract:'' '''The best milestone plan is simple but with depths''' The planning part of a project is essential to succeed. The milestone plan is one of the most used ..."

Articles Fall Term 2015

2015-09-15T13:32:07Z

S113665:

Please complete this table with your name, user name and the title of your article.

To create more lines in the table click '''Edit''' and use the following code to create more lines in the table and replace the example text with your own information:

<pre style="white-space: pre-wrap;
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white-space: -pre-wrap;
white-space: -o-pre-wrap;
word-wrap: break-word;">
|Last Name
|First Name
|Username
|[Link]
|-

Create a direct link by making square brackets around the title [[The Gantt chart and the usage nowadays]] (Case sensitive)

The straight lines ( | ) create columns and the straight line with a dash ( |- ) creates a new row in the table.
( |} ) is only used at the very end to finish the coding for the table.
</pre>

=Overview of 2015 Wiki Articles=

{| class="wikitable sortable"
|+Fall 2015 Wiki Articles
|-
!Group Number
!Last Name
!First Name
!User Name
!Link to article
|-
|Group 12
|Gkatzalas
|Nikolaos
|s141569
|[[The Gantt chart and the usage nowadays]]
|-
|Group 6
|Lymperis
|Konstantinos
|s142330
|[[Risk Management in Oil and Gas Industry]]
|-
|Group 3
|Filis
|Charalampos
|Ch.filis
|[[Project Risk Management and Project Risk Management Processes]]
|-
|Group 11
|Larsen
|Leonora
|s112910
|[[Gantt Charts as a Tool for Project Management]]
|-
|Group 10
|Sala Vilar
|Lluís Ròmul
|s141586
|[[Portfolio Management in a Startup]]
|-
|Group 14
|Pitsavas
|Konstantinos
|Konspits
|[[Modularisation: A modern process for project management]]
|-
|Group 2
|Kampianakis
|Andreas
|s150912
|[[Financial Portfolio Optimization Methods]]'''
|-
|Group 13
|Penzes
|Balint
|s141943
|[[Product development and portfolio management processes at LEGO]]
|-
|Group 6
|Hozmache
|Mihaela
|s146898
|[[Risk Management]]'''
|-
|Group 14
|Le Corre
|Damien
|Damien
|[[Game theory in project management]]'''
|-
|Group 14
|Bertrand
|Fabien
|150477
|[[Multi project management]]'''
|-
|Group 9
|Cassel
|Sara
|Sarac
|[[The benefits of systems engineering]]'''
|-
|Group 13
|Sergi
|Gibaja Musachs
|S141926
|[[Rapid Application Development in Extreme Project Management]]'''
|-
|Group 14
|Poza
|María
|s150793
|[[Integrated Cost and Schedule Control]]'''
|-
|Group 6
|Kulikova
|Nataliia
|s140767
|[[SCRUM Method]]
|-
|Group 4
|Pekala
|Adam
|Adam.pekala
|[[Critical Path Method in Construction Industry]]
|-
|Group 10
|Garnotel
|Gaëtan
|gaetangarnotel
|[[V-Model]]
|-
|Group 4
|Ghanizada
|Naweed
|S103745
|[[PRINCE2, A Project Management Methodology]]
|-
|Group 1
|Jacobsen
|Martin
|MistaJacob
|[[Mindfulness and Cognitive Biases in Project Management]]
|-
|Group 6
|Ferraresi
|Fabrizio
|S150905
|[[Projects in Controlled Environments, a process-based approach for project management]]
|-
|Group 5
|Tanghus
|Bjarke
|S113815
|[[Location Based Scheduling]]
|-
|Group 9
|Højgaard Hindhede
|Daniel
|S143352
|[[ Critical path optimization in construction management]]
|-
|Group 10
|Gayot
|Charles-Henri
|s141074
|[[Responsibility Assignment Matrix (RACI Matrix)]]
|-
|Group 12
|Thorp Sørensen
|Anders
|s103183
|[[The Gantt Chart]]
|-
|Group 3
|Makris
|Dimitrios
|Dimak
|[[Benchmarking in Project Management]]
|-
|Group 7
|Greiling
|Lea
|Lea
|[[Lean in Project Management]]
|-
|Group 8
|Latorre Duque
|Ana
|Ana
| [[Modularity and Black-Boxing]]
|-
|Group 7
|Almanzi
|Stefano
|S141530
|[[ Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)]]
|-
|Group 12
|Montagner
|Giacomo
|S150821
|[[Scrum Methodology in the Agile Project Management]]
|-
|Group 14
|Ruiz Muñoz
|Gustavo Adolfo
|S121408
| [[Lean 6 Sigma in project management]]
|-
|Group 3
|Kalmus
|Thomas
|S141938
| [[Program evaluation and review technique (PERT) ]]
|-
|Group 12
|Gudmundsson
|Arnar Gauti
|S141543
|[[Program management in change management]]
|-
|Group 5
|Jacobsen
|Ian Thobias
|S113735
|[[Story Points Estimation]]
|-
|Group 11
|Boesgaard
|Katrine
|KB1991
|[[Gantt Chart]]
|-
|Group 5
|Sorth-Olsen
|Rasmus
|Sorth90
|[[Lean as a project management tool]]
|-
|Group 13
|Salling
|Stephanie
|StephSalling
|[[Management in E. Pihl & Søn A/S]]
|-
|Group 6
|Ruina
|Jessica Linda
|Jejenji
|[[Scheduling techniques in Project Management]]
|-
|Group 4
|Gjerstrup
|Jacob
|s113440
|[[Fault tree analysis]]
|-
|Group 11
|Lynge
|Jane
|s997303
|[[Theory of Constraint]]
|-
|Group 8
|Palmerini
|Alessandro
|alex161
|[[Project Management Communication]]
|-
|Group 2
|Tvedt
|Ida Marie
|IMT
|[[BREEAM - project management and sustainable development]]
|-
|Group 2
|Søndenaa
|Mathilde Hanssen
|s150621
|[[Critical chain project management (CCPM)]]
|-
|Group 9
|Helassalo
|Antti
|s141506
|[[Development phase of idea to project]]
|-
|Group 9
|Thorning-Schmidt
|Nanna
|Nannats
|[[Earned Value Management]]
|-
|Group 10
|Bureika
|Edvinas
|s141931
|[[Communication in Project Management]]
|-
|Group 1
|Rasmussen
|Marie-Louise
|DI2009
|[[Cross cultural teamwork]]
|-
|Group
|Lara Hoces
|Fernando
|s131882
|[[The Oticon Case: the Spaghetti organisation]]
|-
|Group 13
|Christos
|Stamatis
|S145170
|[[Olympic Games London 2012: When the client strives for innovation (The London model)]]'''
|-
|Group 5
|Moe
|Elizabeth Lindhard
|113129
|[[Contracting as a PM]]
|-
|Group 3
|Lessis
|Vasileios
|lessisv
|[[Rational Unified Process (RUP)]]
|-
|Group 8
|Klibo Buur
|Christian
|Buurbuur
|[[Project Execution Model (PEM)]]
|-
|Group 8
|Bachmann
|Thomas
|s117318
|[[Lean Tools in Project Management]]
|-
|Group 11
|Vilar Bustos
|Alberto
|s142581
|[[Minimizing Risk and Uncertainties in Construction Projects]]
|-
|Group 1
|Trap Wiegandt
|Sissel
|s112195
|[[The Critical Path Method (CPM)]]
|-
|Group 2
|Christensen
|Britt Marie Lekven
|brittmch
|[[Lean in building and construction industry]]
|-
|Group 5
|Vestergaard Andersen
|Andreas
|AndreasAndersen
|[[Management of Project Change ]]
|-
|Group 7
|Ann-Elise
|Gustavsen
|Alise
|[[Stakeholder Analysis and Matrices ]]
|-
|Group 2
|Krogh
|Daniel
|DanielKrogh
|[[Managing Uncertainty and Risk on the Project]]
|-
|Group 7
|Fabio
|Labrini
|s142911
|[[Critical Chain Project Management to cope with uncertainty]]
|-
|Group 1
|Viig
|Oliver Johannes
|s102935
|[[BIM as a project management tool on construction projects]]
|-
|Group 8
|Federico
|Sbernini
|s141573
|[[The critical path method as input for quantitative schedule risk assessment]]
|-
|Group 12
|Augustin
|Bouet
|s142823
|[[Metra Potential Method]]
|-
|Group 7
|Eva Schultz
|Hansen
|s112960
|[[The Role of Boundary Objects in Project Management]]
|-
|Group 13
|Otiv
|Peter
|s145166
|[[Project Financing Initiative]]
|-
|Group 4
|Juhasz
|Bianka Zsuzsanna
|Biankajuh
|[[Changing conversations based on the Stacey matrix]]
|-
|Group
|Rodrigues
|Rafael
|s150931
|[[Project Integration Management]]
|-
|Group 2
|Camilla
|Flataukan
|s150801
|[[Mindfulness in Project Management]]
|-
|Group 9
|Søren
|Thomsen
|s140046
|[[Organisational resilience with mindfulness]]
|-
|Group 8
|Schrøder
|Niklas
|Faker
|[[Theory of Constraints]]
|-
|Group 11
|Herreros
|Maria
|s142597
|[[Early warning signals in project management]]
|-
|Group 3
|Larsen
|Martin T
|s103128
|[[Management of risk in projects]]
|-
|Group 9
|Hoier
|Lasse Rasmus
|Lassehoier87
|[[Application of Antifragility in Project Management]]
|-
|Group 4
|Shapel
|Sarah Groot
|s152093
|[[Leadership styles]]
|-
|Group 4
|Hammer
|Jonas
|s113665
|[[The best milestone plan is simple but with depths!]]
|}

Articles Fall Term 2015

2015-09-15T13:23:13Z

S113665: /* Overview of 2015 Wiki Articles */

Please complete this table with your name, user name and the title of your article.

To create more lines in the table click '''Edit''' and use the following code to create more lines in the table and replace the example text with your own information:

<pre style="white-space: pre-wrap;
white-space: -moz-pre-wrap;
white-space: -pre-wrap;
white-space: -o-pre-wrap;
word-wrap: break-word;">
|Hammer
|Jonas
|s113665
|[[Milestone planning]]
|-

Create a direct link by making square brackets around the title [[The Gantt chart and the usage nowadays]] (Case sensitive)

The straight lines ( | ) create columns and the straight line with a dash ( |- ) creates a new row in the table.
( |} ) is only used at the very end to finish the coding for the table.
</pre>

=Overview of 2015 Wiki Articles=

{| class="wikitable sortable"
|+Fall 2015 Wiki Articles
|-
!Group Number
!Last Name
!First Name
!User Name
!Link to article
|-
|Group 12
|Gkatzalas
|Nikolaos
|s141569
|[[The Gantt chart and the usage nowadays]]
|-
|Group 6
|Lymperis
|Konstantinos
|s142330
|[[Risk Management in Oil and Gas Industry]]
|-
|Group 3
|Filis
|Charalampos
|Ch.filis
|[[Project Risk Management and Project Risk Management Processes]]
|-
|Group 11
|Larsen
|Leonora
|s112910
|[[Gantt Charts as a Tool for Project Management]]
|-
|Group 10
|Sala Vilar
|Lluís Ròmul
|s141586
|[[Portfolio Management in a Startup]]
|-
|Group 14
|Pitsavas
|Konstantinos
|Konspits
|[[Modularisation: A modern process for project management]]
|-
|Group 2
|Kampianakis
|Andreas
|s150912
|[[Financial Portfolio Optimization Methods]]'''
|-
|Group 13
|Penzes
|Balint
|s141943
|[[Product development and portfolio management processes at LEGO]]
|-
|Group 6
|Hozmache
|Mihaela
|s146898
|[[Risk Management]]'''
|-
|Group 14
|Le Corre
|Damien
|Damien
|[[Game theory in project management]]'''
|-
|Group 14
|Bertrand
|Fabien
|150477
|[[Multi project management]]'''
|-
|Group 9
|Cassel
|Sara
|Sarac
|[[The benefits of systems engineering]]'''
|-
|Group 13
|Sergi
|Gibaja Musachs
|S141926
|[[Rapid Application Development in Extreme Project Management]]'''
|-
|Group 14
|Poza
|María
|s150793
|[[Integrated Cost and Schedule Control]]'''
|-
|Group 6
|Kulikova
|Nataliia
|s140767
|[[SCRUM Method]]
|-
|Group 4
|Pekala
|Adam
|Adam.pekala
|[[Critical Path Method in Construction Industry]]
|-
|Group 10
|Garnotel
|Gaëtan
|gaetangarnotel
|[[V-Model]]
|-
|Group 4
|Ghanizada
|Naweed
|S103745
|[[PRINCE2, A Project Management Methodology]]
|-
|Group 1
|Jacobsen
|Martin
|MistaJacob
|[[Mindfulness and Cognitive Biases in Project Management]]
|-
|Group 6
|Ferraresi
|Fabrizio
|S150905
|[[Projects in Controlled Environments, a process-based approach for project management]]
|-
|Group 5
|Tanghus
|Bjarke
|S113815
|[[Location Based Scheduling]]
|-
|Group 9
|Højgaard Hindhede
|Daniel
|S143352
|[[ Critical path optimization in construction management]]
|-
|Group 10
|Gayot
|Charles-Henri
|s141074
|[[Responsibility Assignment Matrix (RACI Matrix)]]
|-
|Group 12
|Thorp Sørensen
|Anders
|s103183
|[[The Gantt Chart]]
|-
|Group 3
|Makris
|Dimitrios
|Dimak
|[[Benchmarking in Project Management]]
|-
|Group 7
|Greiling
|Lea
|Lea
|[[Lean in Project Management]]
|-
|Group 8
|Latorre Duque
|Ana
|Ana
| [[Modularity and Black-Boxing]]
|-
|Group 7
|Almanzi
|Stefano
|S141530
|[[ Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)]]
|-
|Group 12
|Montagner
|Giacomo
|S150821
|[[Scrum Methodology in the Agile Project Management]]
|-
|Group 14
|Ruiz Muñoz
|Gustavo Adolfo
|S121408
| [[Lean 6 Sigma in project management]]
|-
|Group 3
|Kalmus
|Thomas
|S141938
| [[Program evaluation and review technique (PERT) ]]
|-
|Group 12
|Gudmundsson
|Arnar Gauti
|S141543
|[[Program management in change management]]
|-
|Group 5
|Jacobsen
|Ian Thobias
|S113735
|[[Story Points Estimation]]
|-
|Group 11
|Boesgaard
|Katrine
|KB1991
|[[Gantt Chart]]
|-
|Group 5
|Sorth-Olsen
|Rasmus
|Sorth90
|[[Lean as a project management tool]]
|-
|Group 13
|Salling
|Stephanie
|StephSalling
|[[Management in E. Pihl & Søn A/S]]
|-
|Group 6
|Ruina
|Jessica Linda
|Jejenji
|[[Scheduling techniques in Project Management]]
|-
|Group 4
|Gjerstrup
|Jacob
|s113440
|[[Fault tree analysis]]
|-
|Group 11
|Lynge
|Jane
|s997303
|[[Theory of Constraint]]
|-
|Group 8
|Palmerini
|Alessandro
|alex161
|[[Project Management Communication]]
|-
|Group 2
|Tvedt
|Ida Marie
|IMT
|[[BREEAM - project management and sustainable development]]
|-
|Group 2
|Søndenaa
|Mathilde Hanssen
|s150621
|[[Critical chain project management (CCPM)]]
|-
|Group 9
|Helassalo
|Antti
|s141506
|[[Development phase of idea to project]]
|-
|Group 9
|Thorning-Schmidt
|Nanna
|Nannats
|[[Earned Value Management]]
|-
|Group 10
|Bureika
|Edvinas
|s141931
|[[Communication in Project Management]]
|-
|Group 1
|Rasmussen
|Marie-Louise
|DI2009
|[[Cross cultural teamwork]]
|-
|Group
|Lara Hoces
|Fernando
|s131882
|[[The Oticon Case: the Spaghetti organisation]]
|-
|Group 13
|Christos
|Stamatis
|S145170
|[[Olympic Games London 2012: When the client strives for innovation (The London model)]]'''
|-
|Group 5
|Moe
|Elizabeth Lindhard
|113129
|[[Contracting as a PM]]
|-
|Group 3
|Lessis
|Vasileios
|lessisv
|[[Rational Unified Process (RUP)]]
|-
|Group 8
|Klibo Buur
|Christian
|Buurbuur
|[[Project Execution Model (PEM)]]
|-
|Group 8
|Bachmann
|Thomas
|s117318
|[[Lean Tools in Project Management]]
|-
|Group 11
|Vilar Bustos
|Alberto
|s142581
|[[Minimizing Risk and Uncertainties in Construction Projects]]
|-
|Group 1
|Trap Wiegandt
|Sissel
|s112195
|[[The Critical Path Method (CPM)]]
|-
|Group 2
|Christensen
|Britt Marie Lekven
|brittmch
|[[Lean in building and construction industry]]
|-
|Group 5
|Vestergaard Andersen
|Andreas
|AndreasAndersen
|[[Management of Project Change ]]
|-
|Group 7
|Ann-Elise
|Gustavsen
|Alise
|[[Stakeholder Analysis and Matrices ]]
|-
|Group 2
|Krogh
|Daniel
|DanielKrogh
|[[Managing Uncertainty and Risk on the Project]]
|-
|Group 7
|Fabio
|Labrini
|s142911
|[[Critical Chain Project Management to cope with uncertainty]]
|-
|Group 1
|Viig
|Oliver Johannes
|s102935
|[[BIM as a project management tool on construction projects]]
|-
|Group 8
|Federico
|Sbernini
|s141573
|[[The critical path method as input for quantitative schedule risk assessment]]
|-
|Group 12
|Augustin
|Bouet
|s142823
|[[Metra Potential Method]]
|-
|Group 7
|Eva Schultz
|Hansen
|s112960
|[[The Role of Boundary Objects in Project Management]]
|-
|Group 13
|Otiv
|Peter
|s145166
|[[Project Financing Initiative]]
|-
|Group 4
|Juhasz
|Bianka Zsuzsanna
|Biankajuh
|[[Changing conversations based on the Stacey matrix]]
|-
|Group
|Rodrigues
|Rafael
|s150931
|[[Project Integration Management]]
|-
|Group 2
|Camilla
|Flataukan
|s150801
|[[Mindfulness in Project Management]]
|-
|Group 9
|Søren
|Thomsen
|s140046
|[[Organisational resilience with mindfulness]]
|-
|Group 8
|Schrøder
|Niklas
|Faker
|[[Theory of Constraints]]
|-
|Group 11
|Herreros
|Maria
|s142597
|[[Early warning signals in project management]]
|-
|Group 3
|Larsen
|Martin T
|s103128
|[[Management of risk in projects]]
|-
|Group 9
|Hoier
|Lasse Rasmus
|s117015
|[[Application of Antifragility in Project Management]]
|-
|Group 4
|Shapel
|Sarah Groot
|s152093
|[[Leadership styles]]
|-
|Group 4
|Hammer
|Jonas
|s113665
|[[The best milestone plan is simple but with depths!]]
|}

Articles Fall Term 2015

2015-09-15T13:18:39Z

S113665:

Please complete this table with your name, user name and the title of your article.

To create more lines in the table click '''Edit''' and use the following code to create more lines in the table and replace the example text with your own information:

<pre style="white-space: pre-wrap;
white-space: -moz-pre-wrap;
white-space: -pre-wrap;
white-space: -o-pre-wrap;
word-wrap: break-word;">
|Hammer
|Jonas
|s113665
|[[Milestone planning]]
|-

Create a direct link by making square brackets around the title [[The Gantt chart and the usage nowadays]] (Case sensitive)

The straight lines ( | ) create columns and the straight line with a dash ( |- ) creates a new row in the table.
( |} ) is only used at the very end to finish the coding for the table.
</pre>

=Overview of 2015 Wiki Articles=

{| class="wikitable sortable"
|+Fall 2015 Wiki Articles
|-
!Group Number
!Last Name
!First Name
!User Name
!Link to article
|-
|Group
|Gkatzalas
|Nikolaos
|s141569
|[[The Gantt chart and the usage nowadays]]
|-
|Group 6
|Lymperis
|Konstantinos
|s142330
|[[Risk Management in Oil and Gas Industry]]
|-
|Group 3
|Filis
|Charalampos
|Ch.filis
|[[Project Risk Management and Project Risk Management Processes]]
|-
|Group
|Larsen
|Leonora
|s112910
|[[Gantt Charts as a Tool for Project Management]]
|-
|Group
|Sala Vilar
|Lluís Ròmul
|s141586
|[[Portfolio Management in a Startup]]
|-
|Group
|Pitsavas
|Konstantinos
|Konspits
|[[Modularisation: A modern process for project management]]
|-
|Group 2
|Kampianakis
|Andreas
|s150912
|[[Financial Portfolio Optimization Methods]]'''
|-
|Group
|Penzes
|Balint
|s141943
|[[Product development and portfolio management processes at LEGO]]
|-
|Group 6
|Hozmache
|Mihaela
|s146898
|[[Risk Management]]'''
|-
|Group
|Le Corre
|Damien
|Damien
|[[Game theory in project management]]'''
|-
|Group
|Bertrand
|Fabien
|150477
|[[Multi project management]]'''
|-
|Group 9
|Cassel
|Sara
|Sarac
|[[The benefits of systems engineering]]'''
|-
|Group
|Sergi
|Gibaja Musachs
|S141926
|[[Rapid Application Development in Extreme Project Management]]'''
|-
|Group
|Poza
|María
|s150793
|[[Integrated Cost and Schedule Control]]'''
|-
|Group 6
|Kulikova
|Nataliia
|s140767
|[[SCRUM Method]]
|-
|Group 4
|Pekala
|Adam
|Adam.pekala
|[[Critical Path Method in Construction Industry]]
|-
|Group
|Garnotel
|Gaëtan
|gaetangarnotel
|[[V-Model]]
|-
|Group 4
|Ghanizada
|Naweed
|S103745
|[[PRINCE2, A Project Management Methodology]]
|-
|Group 1
|Jacobsen
|Martin
|MistaJacob
|[[Mindfulness and Cognitive Biases in Project Management]]
|-
|Group 6
|Ferraresi
|Fabrizio
|S150905
|[[Projects in Controlled Environments, a process-based approach for project management]]
|-
|Group 5
|Tanghus
|Bjarke
|S113815
|[[Location Based Scheduling]]
|-
|Group 9
|Højgaard Hindhede
|Daniel
|S143352
|[[ Critical path optimization in construction management]]
|-
|Group
|Gayot
|Charles-Henri
|s141074
|[[Responsibility Assignment Matrix (RACI Matrix)]]
|-
|Group
|Thorp Sørensen
|Anders
|s103183
|[[The Gantt Chart]]
|-
|Group 3
|Makris
|Dimitrios
|Dimak
|[[Benchmarking in Project Management]]
|-
|Group 7
|Greiling
|Lea
|Lea
|[[Lean in Project Management]]
|-
|Group 8
|Latorre Duque
|Ana
|Ana
| [[Modularity and Black-Boxing]]
|-
|Group 7
|Almanzi
|Stefano
|S141530
|[[ Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)]]
|-
|Group
|Montagner
|Giacomo
|S150821
|[[Scrum Methodology in the Agile Project Management]]
|-
|Group
|Ruiz Muñoz
|Gustavo Adolfo
|S121408
| [[Lean 6 Sigma in project management]]
|-
|Group 3
|Kalmus
|Thomas
|S141938
| [[Program evaluation and review technique (PERT) ]]
|-
|Group
|Gudmundsson
|Arnar Gauti
|S141543
|[[Program management in change management]]
|-
|Group 5
|Jacobsen
|Ian Thobias
|S113735
|[[Story Points Estimation]]
|-
|Group
|Boesgaard
|Katrine
|KB1991
|[[Gantt Chart]]
|-
|Group 5
|Sorth-Olsen
|Rasmus
|Sorth90
|[[Lean as a project management tool]]
|-
|Group
|Salling
|Stephanie
|StephSalling
|[[Management in E. Pihl & Søn A/S]]
|-
|Group 6
|Ruina
|Jessica Linda
|Jejenji
|[[Scheduling techniques in Project Management]]
|-
|Group 4
|Gjerstrup
|Jacob
|s113440
|[[Fault tree analysis]]
|-
|Group
|Lynge
|Jane
|s997303
|[[Theory of Constraint]]
|-
|Group 8
|Palmerini
|Alessandro
|alex161
|[[Project Management Communication]]
|-
|Group 2
|Tvedt
|Ida Marie
|IMT
|[[BREEAM - project management and sustainable development]]
|-
|Group 2
|Søndenaa
|Mathilde Hanssen
|s150621
|[[Critical chain project management (CCPM)]]
|-
|Group 9
|Helassalo
|Antti
|s141506
|[[Development phase of idea to project]]
|-
|Group 9
|Thorning-Schmidt
|Nanna
|Nannats
|[[Earned Value Management]]
|-
|Group
|Bureika
|Edvinas
|s141931
|[[Communication in Project Management]]
|-
|Group 1
|Rasmussen
|Marie-Louise
|DI2009
|[[Cross cultural teamwork]]
|-
|Group
|Lara Hoces
|Fernando
|s131882
|[[The Oticon Case: the Spaghetti organisation]]
|-
|Group
|Christos
|Stamatis
|S145170
|[[Olympic Games London 2012: When the client strives for innovation (The London model)]]'''
|-
|Group 5
|Moe
|Elizabeth Lindhard
|113129
|[[Contracting as a PM]]
|-
|Group 3
|Lessis
|Vasileios
|lessisv
|[[Rational Unified Process (RUP)]]
|-
|Group 8
|Klibo Buur
|Christian
|Buurbuur
|[[Project Execution Model (PEM)]]
|-
|Group 8
|Bachmann
|Thomas
|s117318
|[[Lean Tools in Project Management]]
|-
|Group
|Vilar Bustos
|Alberto
|s142581
|[[Minimizing Risk and Uncertainties in Construction Projects]]
|-
|Group 1
|Trap Wiegandt
|Sissel
|s112195
|[[The Critical Path Method (CPM)]]
|-
|Group 2
|Christensen
|Britt Marie Lekven
|brittmch
|[[Lean in building and construction industry]]
|-
|Group 5
|Vestergaard Andersen
|Andreas
|AndreasAndersen
|[[Management of Project Change ]]
|-
|Group 7
|Ann-Elise
|Gustavsen
|Alise
|[[Stakeholder Analysis and Matrices ]]
|-
|Group 2
|Krogh
|Daniel
|DanielKrogh
|[[Managing Uncertainty and Risk on the Project]]
|-
|Group 7
|Fabio
|Labrini
|s142911
|[[Critical Chain Project Management to cope with uncertainty]]
|-
|Group 1
|Viig
|Oliver Johannes
|s102935
|[[BIM as a project management tool on construction projects]]
|-
|Group 8
|Federico
|Sbernini
|s141573
|[[The critical path method as input for quantitative schedule risk assessment]]
|-
|Group
|Augustin
|Bouet
|s142823
|[[Metra Potential Method]]
|-
|Group 7
|Eva Schultz
|Hansen
|s112960
|[[The Role of Boundary Objects in Project Management]]
|-
|Group
|Otiv
|Peter
|s145166
|[[Project Financing Initiative]]
|-
|Group 4
|Juhasz
|Bianka Zsuzsanna
|Biankajuh
|[[Changing conversations based on the Stacey matrix]]
|-
|Group
|Rodrigues
|Rafael
|s150931
|[[Project Integration Management]]
|-
|Group 2
|Camilla
|Flataukan
|s150801
|[[Mindfulness in Project Management]]
|-
|Group 9
|Søren
|Thomsen
|s140046
|[[Organisational resilience with mindfulness]]
|-
|Group 8
|Schrøder
|Niklas
|Faker
|[[Theory of Constraints]]
|-
|Group
|Herreros
|Maria
|s142597
|[[Early warning signals in project management]]
|-
|Group 3
|Larsen
|Martin T
|s103128
|[[Management of risk in projects]]
|-
|Group 9
|Hoier
|Lasse Rasmus
|s117015
|[[Application of Antifragility in Project Management]]
|-
|Group 4
|Shapel
|Sarah Groot
|s152093
|[[Leadership styles]]
|}

Articles Fall Term 2015

2015-09-15T13:16:44Z

S113665:

Please complete this table with your name, user name and the title of your article.

To create more lines in the table click '''Edit''' and use the following code to create more lines in the table and replace the example text with your own information:

<pre style="white-space: pre-wrap;
white-space: -moz-pre-wrap;
white-space: -pre-wrap;
white-space: -o-pre-wrap;
word-wrap: break-word;">
|Hammer
|Jonas
|s113665
|[Milestone planning]
|-

Create a direct link by making square brackets around the title [[The Gantt chart and the usage nowadays]] (Case sensitive)

The straight lines ( | ) create columns and the straight line with a dash ( |- ) creates a new row in the table.
( |} ) is only used at the very end to finish the coding for the table.
</pre>

=Overview of 2015 Wiki Articles=

{| class="wikitable sortable"
|+Fall 2015 Wiki Articles
|-
!Group Number
!Last Name
!First Name
!User Name
!Link to article
|-
|Group
|Gkatzalas
|Nikolaos
|s141569
|[[The Gantt chart and the usage nowadays]]
|-
|Group 6
|Lymperis
|Konstantinos
|s142330
|[[Risk Management in Oil and Gas Industry]]
|-
|Group 3
|Filis
|Charalampos
|Ch.filis
|[[Project Risk Management and Project Risk Management Processes]]
|-
|Group
|Larsen
|Leonora
|s112910
|[[Gantt Charts as a Tool for Project Management]]
|-
|Group
|Sala Vilar
|Lluís Ròmul
|s141586
|[[Portfolio Management in a Startup]]
|-
|Group
|Pitsavas
|Konstantinos
|Konspits
|[[Modularisation: A modern process for project management]]
|-
|Group 2
|Kampianakis
|Andreas
|s150912
|[[Financial Portfolio Optimization Methods]]'''
|-
|Group
|Penzes
|Balint
|s141943
|[[Product development and portfolio management processes at LEGO]]
|-
|Group 6
|Hozmache
|Mihaela
|s146898
|[[Risk Management]]'''
|-
|Group
|Le Corre
|Damien
|Damien
|[[Game theory in project management]]'''
|-
|Group
|Bertrand
|Fabien
|150477
|[[Multi project management]]'''
|-
|Group 9
|Cassel
|Sara
|Sarac
|[[The benefits of systems engineering]]'''
|-
|Group
|Sergi
|Gibaja Musachs
|S141926
|[[Rapid Application Development in Extreme Project Management]]'''
|-
|Group
|Poza
|María
|s150793
|[[Integrated Cost and Schedule Control]]'''
|-
|Group 6
|Kulikova
|Nataliia
|s140767
|[[SCRUM Method]]
|-
|Group 4
|Pekala
|Adam
|Adam.pekala
|[[Critical Path Method in Construction Industry]]
|-
|Group
|Garnotel
|Gaëtan
|gaetangarnotel
|[[V-Model]]
|-
|Group 4
|Ghanizada
|Naweed
|S103745
|[[PRINCE2, A Project Management Methodology]]
|-
|Group 1
|Jacobsen
|Martin
|MistaJacob
|[[Mindfulness and Cognitive Biases in Project Management]]
|-
|Group 6
|Ferraresi
|Fabrizio
|S150905
|[[Projects in Controlled Environments, a process-based approach for project management]]
|-
|Group 5
|Tanghus
|Bjarke
|S113815
|[[Location Based Scheduling]]
|-
|Group 9
|Højgaard Hindhede
|Daniel
|S143352
|[[ Critical path optimization in construction management]]
|-
|Group
|Gayot
|Charles-Henri
|s141074
|[[Responsibility Assignment Matrix (RACI Matrix)]]
|-
|Group
|Thorp Sørensen
|Anders
|s103183
|[[The Gantt Chart]]
|-
|Group 3
|Makris
|Dimitrios
|Dimak
|[[Benchmarking in Project Management]]
|-
|Group 7
|Greiling
|Lea
|Lea
|[[Lean in Project Management]]
|-
|Group 8
|Latorre Duque
|Ana
|Ana
| [[Modularity and Black-Boxing]]
|-
|Group 7
|Almanzi
|Stefano
|S141530
|[[ Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)]]
|-
|Group
|Montagner
|Giacomo
|S150821
|[[Scrum Methodology in the Agile Project Management]]
|-
|Group
|Ruiz Muñoz
|Gustavo Adolfo
|S121408
| [[Lean 6 Sigma in project management]]
|-
|Group 3
|Kalmus
|Thomas
|S141938
| [[Program evaluation and review technique (PERT) ]]
|-
|Group
|Gudmundsson
|Arnar Gauti
|S141543
|[[Program management in change management]]
|-
|Group 5
|Jacobsen
|Ian Thobias
|S113735
|[[Story Points Estimation]]
|-
|Group
|Boesgaard
|Katrine
|KB1991
|[[Gantt Chart]]
|-
|Group 5
|Sorth-Olsen
|Rasmus
|Sorth90
|[[Lean as a project management tool]]
|-
|Group
|Salling
|Stephanie
|StephSalling
|[[Management in E. Pihl & Søn A/S]]
|-
|Group 6
|Ruina
|Jessica Linda
|Jejenji
|[[Scheduling techniques in Project Management]]
|-
|Group 4
|Gjerstrup
|Jacob
|s113440
|[[Fault tree analysis]]
|-
|Group
|Lynge
|Jane
|s997303
|[[Theory of Constraint]]
|-
|Group 8
|Palmerini
|Alessandro
|alex161
|[[Project Management Communication]]
|-
|Group 2
|Tvedt
|Ida Marie
|IMT
|[[BREEAM - project management and sustainable development]]
|-
|Group 2
|Søndenaa
|Mathilde Hanssen
|s150621
|[[Critical chain project management (CCPM)]]
|-
|Group 9
|Helassalo
|Antti
|s141506
|[[Development phase of idea to project]]
|-
|Group 9
|Thorning-Schmidt
|Nanna
|Nannats
|[[Earned Value Management]]
|-
|Group
|Bureika
|Edvinas
|s141931
|[[Communication in Project Management]]
|-
|Group 1
|Rasmussen
|Marie-Louise
|DI2009
|[[Cross cultural teamwork]]
|-
|Group
|Lara Hoces
|Fernando
|s131882
|[[The Oticon Case: the Spaghetti organisation]]
|-
|Group
|Christos
|Stamatis
|S145170
|[[Olympic Games London 2012: When the client strives for innovation (The London model)]]'''
|-
|Group 5
|Moe
|Elizabeth Lindhard
|113129
|[[Contracting as a PM]]
|-
|Group 3
|Lessis
|Vasileios
|lessisv
|[[Rational Unified Process (RUP)]]
|-
|Group 8
|Klibo Buur
|Christian
|Buurbuur
|[[Project Execution Model (PEM)]]
|-
|Group 8
|Bachmann
|Thomas
|s117318
|[[Lean Tools in Project Management]]
|-
|Group
|Vilar Bustos
|Alberto
|s142581
|[[Minimizing Risk and Uncertainties in Construction Projects]]
|-
|Group 1
|Trap Wiegandt
|Sissel
|s112195
|[[The Critical Path Method (CPM)]]
|-
|Group 2
|Christensen
|Britt Marie Lekven
|brittmch
|[[Lean in building and construction industry]]
|-
|Group 5
|Vestergaard Andersen
|Andreas
|AndreasAndersen
|[[Management of Project Change ]]
|-
|Group 7
|Ann-Elise
|Gustavsen
|Alise
|[[Stakeholder Analysis and Matrices ]]
|-
|Group 2
|Krogh
|Daniel
|DanielKrogh
|[[Managing Uncertainty and Risk on the Project]]
|-
|Group 7
|Fabio
|Labrini
|s142911
|[[Critical Chain Project Management to cope with uncertainty]]
|-
|Group 1
|Viig
|Oliver Johannes
|s102935
|[[BIM as a project management tool on construction projects]]
|-
|Group 8
|Federico
|Sbernini
|s141573
|[[The critical path method as input for quantitative schedule risk assessment]]
|-
|Group
|Augustin
|Bouet
|s142823
|[[Metra Potential Method]]
|-
|Group 7
|Eva Schultz
|Hansen
|s112960
|[[The Role of Boundary Objects in Project Management]]
|-
|Group
|Otiv
|Peter
|s145166
|[[Project Financing Initiative]]
|-
|Group 4
|Juhasz
|Bianka Zsuzsanna
|Biankajuh
|[[Changing conversations based on the Stacey matrix]]
|-
|Group
|Rodrigues
|Rafael
|s150931
|[[Project Integration Management]]
|-
|Group 2
|Camilla
|Flataukan
|s150801
|[[Mindfulness in Project Management]]
|-
|Group 9
|Søren
|Thomsen
|s140046
|[[Organisational resilience with mindfulness]]
|-
|Group 8
|Schrøder
|Niklas
|Faker
|[[Theory of Constraints]]
|-
|Group
|Herreros
|Maria
|s142597
|[[Early warning signals in project management]]
|-
|Group 3
|Larsen
|Martin T
|s103128
|[[Management of risk in projects]]
|-
|Group 9
|Hoier
|Lasse Rasmus
|s117015
|[[Application of Antifragility in Project Management]]
|-
|Group 4
|Shapel
|Sarah Groot
|s152093
|[[Leadership styles]]
|}