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 are that they are a part of a milestone plan which is an essential project, program and portfolio 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.

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 a milestone plan can give assistance to clarify some of the deliverables for the project within the present knowledge. 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?”.

This article will explore a few scenarios where a milestone plan is either used in a program plan or a contribution by creation a monitoring platform that allows a regular review of the project-, program, or portfolio achievements with in an organization´s strategic plan. Furthermore, the concept will be reflected critically with a practical approach and guidance.

Context

Figure 1: Organizational Strategy retrieved from PMBOK® Guide – Sixth Edition (2017), Figure 1-3, page 12.

• Project has a life cycles and contain various elements such as activities, objectives, focus, benefits etc.

• Program is defined by multiple projects which are grouped together. With subsidiary projects it is possible to track the interdependencies and which intended benefits are achieved. This may not be possible by managing each project individually.

• Portfolio is an effective managing of multiple programs and projects. Portfolio is a process with subsidiary programs and projects that are grouped to gain strategic objectives.

Planning is an essential part of every aspect for managing a project, program, or portfolio. A milestone plan can be used and executed in all detail levels but are used for different purposes. One reason could be that a project and a program both include elements of time. Time regarding a project or a program indicate that it is temporary. Even if a program takes years or decades to fulfill its panned achievements. In contrary, a portfolio does not need a specific end date.

A portfolio encompasses various elements of initiatives and work is not related to each other, to attain the planned benefits. The beginning of initiatives is related to an organization’s strategic plan. The organization’s strategic plan can control the start, or the end of a specific investment. This means the owner(s) of the portfolio are grouping resources dependent on the different subjects such as geographical area, work that must be delivered to the same client, etc. In these scenarios it can be complexed to use a milestone plan.

A plan consisted of milestones for a portfolio could be use, but it cannot obtain concrete monitoring, because portfolios and its activities are not necessary linked together. To get an overview of the relationship between projects, programs and portfolio can figure 1 be used. This figure 1 illustrates a strategy regarding an organization as an example. As mention earlier, a portfolio can contain other portfolios and programs. Portfolio management can include stand-alone projects or have multiple programs before it reaches the portfolio level. The objective of these variations is to gain the planned benefits or subgoals. Furthermore, it is important to notice that the relation between a project, program, or portfolio share resources and stakeholders.

This information is critical, because there is a limit to the resources and which project it is allocated to. The variation for a portfolios structure is important regarding resources. You can ask yourself; “does a portfolio have 3 programs, 5 projects that need resources?” or “does a portfolio consist of 1 program with 10 projects?” This difference changes the allocation of resources and the strategy to group resources for every part.

Explanation and its purpose

A project is typically divided into parts of purpose, people, complexity, and uncertainty. These categories will not be fully explained in this paper. All parts are important and provide methods, knowledges, and management tools to deal with every aspect of handling a project, or other activities. General a plan requires a schedule. When making a schedule it is the activities that gives the schedule a period that is depended on time. This is possible when all activities are clear and known. In many cases it is not the case. When working on a case many questions and uncertainties will rise. Most uncertainties are linked to the missing knowledge on the topic. Is it a common project with high knowledge or is it a unique project with low knowledge? This can increase the complexity drastically and to control complexities, it can be divided into subcategories. A quick view of possible complexities in a project.

• Technical and task complexity
• Time complexity
• Goal complexity
• Social complexity
• Organizational complexity
• Legal complexity

Then a project, program, or portfolio can be complex. Every subcategory relies on methods, concepts, or tools that helps solving the equation for complexity. For planning a project, it is within the time complexity. This include various elements such as milestones, Critical Path Analysis, Gantt chart, etc. Also, in the time complexity questions can be; “How much time does it take to complete an activity or task?” or “When can an activity begin then it will achieve the planned result?” and “How many resources does an activity need and does it require help from individual expertise?”

By diving into the complexities of a project is it vital to know the project scope. Goals for a project is usually set to a predate based on the initial knowledge. In other word, the main task for complexity is to create structure. There are many ways to create structure for a project. The main objective for this paper is to use a milestone plan to create structure. The layout for explaining and discuss a milestone plan is inspired by the literature “Power i projekter og portefølje”.The literature inspired a practical approach concerning a milestone plan.

First step toward a structure is to separate the projects purpose into deliverables. Then when all deliverables are fulfilled the projects purpose is achieved and that is illustrated in the right-side of figure 2. As it is visible, the purpose is divided into deliverables. To achieve every delivery there is created work packages. These work packages are main activities that later leads to a delivery. A work package contain multiple activities and they can be either goal- or result orientated. Several projects are using Work-Breakdown-Structure, shortened WBS. This method provides a hierarchy that break a project into phases, deliverables, and work packages. When a delivery is concrete will it become possible to manage. As an example, a construction of a house is divided by several deliverables which involved contractors. With a separation of the contractors, they will experience to be limited to a specific amount of time. Also, they may do critical work before another contractor begins. So, a contractor is responsible to work within a certain time and trust other to deliver their work on time. If one contractor is delayed it can delay many activities. If this occurs and it pushes other activities, then the critical path is located. Another example would be for an organizational project of change The deliverables for a case like this could be by separation into subjects as organizational structure, work patterns, implementation of a new IT systems, provide guidance for employees, etc.[ref ppp] The common question for both examples are the knowledge high or low? A carpenter has built a wall numerous times and knows how to estimate the time to finish one wall. Nearly all participants involved in the construction of the house knows the required time for doing their work. A project of change in an organizational has other factors than estimate the work and delivery of physical products. To change an organization, it also demands a change of people and their individual work routines. They must learn how to adapts and execute a new implement of for example. As mention earlier, this could be by learning a new IT system or a radical change in their everyday work life. Also, people tent to disagree changes because it affects them.

Second step is to establish milestones regarding to the work packages and they are illustrated by diamond shaped geometry in figure 3. A milestone is a sub-delivery that leads to certain deliverables. Milestones can depend on another milestone. As discussed earlier in the first step, there are two ways to achieve a schedule. One way is typically a project that has been standardize which mean the activities are known. This structure tents to focus on activities before using milestones. The other way is when activities are unclear, then it is important to keep track on the deliverables. This structure uses milestone before focusing on activities. If activities are unknown, would it be best to establish milestones. A reason to use milestones before activities is that a milestone does not alternate throughout a project. There are many possibilities or rather activities that lead to a milestone. A quick example could be that you are bicycling home to your parents, and you know three different roads to get home. The distance and time for the three roads are important, but the main objective are they all lead you home. The roads symbolize activities and your parents’ home as a milestone. This is three different ways to reach your sub-delivery and it is to get home.

Guidance with a practical approach

This is how you use a milestone plan

• Make a guidance which can be used by a project manager, steering committee, and top management of a company.
• Maybe include examples on the approach.

Limitations

• Explain shortly what makes a milestone plan a good tool.
• Discuss the limitations and usual mistakes throughout a project/ program and reflect on how and why these mistakes are happening. The right way to use a milestone plan and the wrong way to use a milestone plan.

Annotated bibliography

Attrup, M. L. and Olsson, J.R. , Power i projekter og portefølje, DJØF Publishing (2008), ISBN: 978-87-574-1665-7.

• This reference discuss the concepts of various management tools including milestone plan. It establishes the basis for at great planning within a practical approach. Beside the basis knowledge, it successfully connects specific parts to a project, program, or portfolio management. When planning a project independently the path to achieve it may be different considered to several reasons. Some of the reasons could be the present knowledge and which effect it has on stakeholders and the steering committee. This balance of information on the concrete management tools and how to implement them on a project, program, or portfolio is why this reference is annotated.

Project Management Institute, Inc.. (2017). Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) (6th Edition). Project Management Institute, Inc. (PMI).

• This is a standard regarding project management and knowledge. It provides knowledge on the relationship for project, program, and portfolio management. The relationship is illustrated by an organizational approach toward an understanding that embrace the differences. …

The Standard for Program Management – Fourth Edition (2017).

• For this article it is important to use the literature Standard for Program Management. This standard clearly provides terms and definitions that explain precisely information regarding program and its uncertainties. …