A milestone chart is a useful tool to have when your team is working on a big project that has various tasks that need to be completed by certain deadlines. It can be helpful to share the chart with your managers or clients so they can see how you're progressing and whether or not you're likely to hit the overall deadline.
Benefits of using a milestone chart
If your team does not track milestones, you will not be able to tell if you are making progress towards your goal. Tracking milestones for your project will help you stay on schedule and achieve your goals.
How to create a milestone chart
If you are planning a project, you can create a simple and effective milestone chart using our template.
Step 1: What are the major milestones for the project?
It can be difficult for project managers and stakeholders to tell milestones apart from tasks. Milestones are different because they show that a project has reached a new stage.
To determine a milestone from task, you might consider asking the following questions:
- Does this task impact our deadline?
- Is this a task or a deliverable?
- Will this point in the project signify significant forward progress?
- Does this task need to be reviewed by stakeholders?
- If this task doesn’t get done, can we still complete the project?
Step 2: Customize milestone chart according to your needs
Select this Milestone Chart template and use it to visually track the smaller steps within a large project. For each milestone, there's a template with several columns; as well as rows to track deadlines, steps, and deliverables. You can always customize the template according to your needs of particular project.
Step 3: Assign each major milestone to a separate column.
Our milestone chart template allows you to add as many columns as you need, each one representing a different milestone. Keep in mind that you need to define major milestones from minor tasks. You should only focus on the most crucial milestones when choosing how many to track for your project. The number of milestones you track will depend on the scope and size of your project.
Step 4: Define deadlines, actions, and deliverables.
The top row of a milestone chart is used to show the time frame or deadline for specific milestone.
The second row of the milestone chart is for the complex of actions that need to be proceeded in order for the milestone to be reached.
The milestone chart's third row is for specific deliverables that can be used to measure whether the milestone has been reached.
Step 5: Customize and track!
As a project progresses, you may find it necessary to tailor your milestone chart to fit the needs of the project. Keep track of the progress of each milestone, and consult with your team regularly to ensure that everyone is up to date on the latest developments.
