Milestone Planning

The characteristics for a successful plan are to provide a path that lead towards a specific goal within a projects scope. The path to create a decent plan can be divided by various activities, uncertainties, phases, and decisions. The similarly between those unknown variables is that they are a part of a milestone planning which is an essential project management tool. Managing or using a milestone plan allows management on different detail levels. The tool can navigate between important phases and its decision points. This is what makes the tool a critical part for program and portfolio management as well. </ref> Project Management Institute, Inc.. (2017). Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) (6th Edition). Project Management Institute, Inc. (PMI). Retrieved from https://app.knovel.com/hotlink/toc/id:kpGPMBKP02/guide-project-management/guide-project-management </ref>

A milestone plan is constructed by milestones instead of focusing on activities. When using a milestone plan in a project planning it gives a goal- and result orientated planning. In a beginning of a project, where the uncertainties are many and nobody have an answer for the future, a milestone plan can give assistance to clarify some of the deliverables for the project within the present knowledge. A clear perspective of the whole project can be difficult and sometimes impossible to manages alone. That is why it is important to know the project goal(s). Some project goals are not concrete and therefore alternated although the planning. Changes though the planning is necessary to reach a common goal that satisfies all stakeholders. The goal can be redirected by new knowledge and that is why it is important to have milestones which create a decision point on “Are we going in the right direction, or do we need to alternate our future planning?” or “Have we achieve the deliverables for this milestone?”.

Reference

Annotated bibliography

Project Management Institute, Inc.. (2017). Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) (6th Edition). Project Management Institute, Inc. (PMI). Retrieved from https://app.knovel.com/hotlink/toc/id:kpGPMBKP02/guide-project-management/guide-project-management