When a project kicks off, one of the first things a project manager must do is make sense of the timeline and determine when key functionalities will be completed. This can be a daunting task, but here are some helpful tips to gain clarity on what will be completed and when for tracking milestones in your website implementation project.
Review the SOW for Milestones
Once you receive a project, the first step as a project manager is to read the SOW (Statement of Work). Sometimes, milestones will be identified in the SOW, providing a great foundation to start from. If you weren’t involved in the drafting process, meet with key individuals who created the document to gain context on why those milestones were agreed upon. You can also review the milestones with all stakeholders during your project kickoff to understand their expectations regarding delivery.
Create Milestones
If there are no milestones in the SOW, or if stakeholders have provided feedback for additional milestones, start documenting high-level milestones that your project will need. For example, every website implementation project will typically include a project kickoff, development cycle, UAT (User Acceptance Testing), and launch. From there, you can collaborate with your project team and stakeholders.
Breaking Down Milestones
If you find that you need to add more milestones for tracking purposes, I find it helpful to use epics. This approach works well for website implementation projects, as you can identify key functionalities as epics and assign user stories/tasks under them. For example:
- Homepage
- Product Listing Page
- Product Details Page
- Checkout
- Payment Gateway Integration
Prioritization
After identifying additional milestones, collaborate with your team and stakeholders to prioritize them. A best practice is to prioritize based on milestones that are high-risk but high-value, followed by those that are low-risk but high-value. This method allows your team to tackle high-risk, high-value work early on, providing more time to address any hurdles.
Assign Dependencies
The next step is to assign dependencies to your milestones, if applicable. Ensure that for a milestone to be completed it doesn’t rely on another milestone being finished first. For example, you might have epics for Checkout and Payment Gateway Integration. You can’t fully mark the Checkout milestone as complete until the Payment Gateway Integration finishes, since it’s necessary for checkout to function.
Time Allocation
It’s beneficial to understand how long each milestone will take to complete. Since many projects run agile, this can be challenging, as teams typically don’t assign estimates to user stories or tasks until the sprint starts. What I’ve found helpful is to work with your lead developer and architect to obtain high-level estimates of how much time it will take to complete epics based on the information gathered during requirements sessions. After conducting a sprint refinement meeting at the beginning of your sprint, compare to see if the overall estimate has changed. Start by getting a high-level number to identify where you will spend development time.
Assign Expected Due Dates
Once you’ve prioritized, identified dependencies, and gathered high-level estimates for your milestones, you can begin assigning expected due dates. Begin with the first milestone and its expected due date. Then, assign due dates for subsequent milestones based on the next business day after completing the previous milestone, plus the estimated hours needed for completion.
Do you have any other tips or ideas on how to approach milestones? Feel free to leave a comment!
Checkout my other blog posts on UAT and Website Project Management.
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