Milestones are specific ‘objective outcome’ events that define when some specific parcel of work has been completed; they typically begin with the word ‘When’ (e.g. ‘When the business case is signed off’, ‘When the cabling has been installed’).
They are called ‘objective outcome’ events because as far as possible the completion of the event must not be a matter of opinion (e.g. ‘When the meeting is held’ is a bad Milestone principally because there is no objective outcome; ‘When the Steering Group agrees and signs off the proposal’ is a good Milestone because there is a clearly defined outcome – either the Steering Group has or has not signed off the proposal). Milestones can be promoted and demoted up and down the hierarchy.
A Project Milestone can at most be promoted twice (to become a Business Change Programme Milestone). A Programme Milestone can at most be promoted once (to become a Business Change Programme Milestone). In the system, the levels at which a Milestone exist are represented by the Promotion Pyramid Symbol. Milestones can be flagged as being ‘Key’ by clicking on the Milestone’s flag icon in the Milestone Plan page.
Milestone Delivery Status
The Milestone Delivery Status of a Milestone that is complete is Black. The Milestone Delivery Status of a Milestone that is incomplete is one of the three Traffic Lights: Red, Amber or Green. The Traffic Lights are used to indicate the extent to which Milestones are on schedule. The algorithm which determines what RED, Amber or Green mean can be changed by the PM3 Administrator.
Milestone Hide Dependencies
Open Plan (BCP, Programme or Project and select Delivery Plan / Milestone Plan. Uncheck the check box in the menu title: ‘Show Dependencies’. This will hide all the dependencies on the plan.
Milestone Plan Page
The Milestone Plan page under the Delivery Plan tab allows you to enter and change a milestone plan.
The left-hand side of the Milestone Plan page shows a table of all Milestones added to date whilst the right-hand side shows these Milestones as ‘diamonds’ with any Dependencies in which they are involved shown as arrows. The colour of the text and the Milestone diamond correspond to the milestone delivery status of that Milestone. The colour of the
Workstream cell (if this is a Project Plan) or Project cell (if this is a Programme Plan) or Programme cell (if this is a BCP
Plan) for each Milestone corresponds to the Workstream, Delivery Status, Project Delivery Status or Programme Delivery Status respectively. The Milestone page can be sorted by any sortable column on the Milestone page. The order of Workstreams within a Project or Projects within a Programme or Programmes within a BCP can be changed by dragging-and-dropping the named Workstream/Project/Programme column header it to its new position in the plan. Milestones can be flagged as being ‘Key’ by clicking on Milestone’s flag icon.
Milestones will be grouped into Workstream/Project/Programme columns, according as this as a
Project/Programme/BCP Plan. Right-clicking on the headings allows you to select columns to view/hide; your selection is then remembered as your preference.
Note: If you cannot see the fields on the milestone page that have been selected, drag the graphical section of the milestone page to the right to display all selected columns.
The Red Line on the Milestone Plan appears under the Milestone with a Completed Date, or, if there is none, the
Revised Date, or, if there is none, the Planned Date that most immediately precedes the current date. Thus, for Milestone Plans that are in date order all Milestones above the Red Line should have been completed. If all Milestones are undated (or they are dated but are not in chronological order) then no Red Line is shown. If the current date precedes all Completed/Revised/Planned Dates, then the Red Line appears at the top of the Milestone Plan table. If the Gantt Chart has been selected, then the Red Line divides yesterday from today.
Milestone Ordering
- On refresh, Milestones are displayed in Priority Order which by default is the order they were added.
- By using drag and drop on rows, you can change the Priority Order, which will be remembered if you refresh the page.
- You can temporarily change the order in which milestones are displayed by clicking on any column header to sort, ascending or descending o This does not affect the Priority Order and if you refresh after a sort, the display is returned to Priority Order
- If you do want the system to remember the new order being displayed after any combination of sorting, drags etc, click the Renumber Milestones icon:
- This will reset the Priority of milestones to match the displayed order being displayed.
- The system understands you mean this to be a persistent change, and so changes the colour of the Workstream based on the colour of the last milestone in the display.
If you refresh at this point, the order of milestones and colour of workstreams will remain unchanged.
Milestone Show Dependencies
Open Plan (BCP, Programme or Project and select Delivery Plan / Milestone Plan. Click the check box in the menu title: ‘Show Dependencies’. This will show all the dependencies on the plan.
Milestone Show External Dependencies
Open Plan (BCP, Programme or Project and select Delivery Plan / Milestone Plan. Check the check box: Show External info.