Explains what project milestones are and milestones vs. phases
Project Milestones #
Project milestones are critical or important points in your project, marking either a key deliverable, a transition to a new phase or stage, or a turning point or “milestone” within your project. Milestones and phases are two different things in iBE.net; however, if you want to link them together and define milestones the same way as phases, you can.
An example of a project milestone for a system implementation project, such as the implementation of iBE.net in your company, might be “Business Requirements Assessment” (aka design) vs. “System Configuration and Data Load” (aka build) vs. “Core Team and User Test.” Or, at a higher level, the system go-live might be your first milestone.
An example of a project milestone if you are building a house might include site work, foundations (concrete), framing, rough electrical, plumbing and HVAC, interior finish, carpentry, and paint. You can divide up your project in whatever way works best for your company.
Milestones are optional; you do not require them to plan, manage, or bill projects.
Milestones vs. Phases #
Technically, in iBE.net, a project milestone is a task that is marked as a milestone via the task type settings. A phase is a property or field on the task used to group tasks together. When you link milestones and phases together, phases are automatically generated to reflect your milestone tasks.
Since milestones are really tasks, they provide deeper functionality compared to phases, namely:
- Milestones can have specific dates (phases inherit their dates from the tasks associated with that phase).
- Milestones can be independently billable on a T&M or fixed-price basis. Fixed-price milestones can have their own unique fee or charge.
- Employees and contractors can book time to a milestone. Expenses and supplier invoices can be booked to a milestone task. From revenue and cost, you can monitor the profitability of a milestone.
- Milestone percent completion can be monitored and calculated based on overall project progress, including by rolling up actuals from sub-tasks within that milestone.
- Tasks within a milestone are represented as sub-tasks in your project.