What Is a Milestone?

A project milestone is a marker or checkpoint that indicates a major goal, event, or task within a project’s lifecycle. Typically, project milestones mark the beginning or end of the phases within a project, which allows stakeholders to plan effectively and assess a project’s progress as it’s being undertaken. Milestones are often used as a scheduling tool to identify when a major goal should be accomplished and to plan the steps, resources, and actions required to accomplish it. 

Milestones are beneficial to project management. In addition to providing a method for charting a path to completing a project, project milestones also allow stakeholders to measure project progress, clarify the project phase in which they work, and identify potential bottleneck issues. A milestone schedule provides stakeholders with an overview of the major events within a project without overwhelming them with all the details of the tasks required to complete it. This overview can be critical to providing a big-picture view of the project and ensuring everyone understands the expectations and needs. 

Milestone example

Project milestones are most often used to indicate the beginning and end of a project’s phases. Still, they can also indicate any notable date, task, event, or deliverable that must be achieved. Some common examples of project milestones include: 

• Reaching a specific number of sales (e.g., 500 sales) 

• The roll-out date for a product or service, such as a software update or product launch 

• A particular deadline (e.g., the last day of a fiscal quarter)

• A major achievement, such as completing a phase within a product’s development 

Learn more about project milestones from project management experts at Google:

Related terms

• Gantt chart

• PERT chart

• Project planning

• Project management lifecycle

• Product lifecycle management (PLM)

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A project milestone is a key achievement or event that marks progress in a project's lifecycle. Milestones help project managers track progress, identify phases, and plan resources. They can include things like completing a project phase or launching a product.

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