Review Milestones

You have no time to review all of the milestones in an international project. There are too many and there is too little time. You have to be selective in reviewing milestones. Which ones do you review? Concentrate on the milestones that have risky tasks and issues associated with them. Milestones that are routine and not critical in that mistakes can be easily corrected can be given less attention.

Here is a proven method for selecting which milestones to review? At the start of the project rate each milestone on a scale of 0 to 3 as follows:

• Level 0, no review. This category is reserved for simple situations.

• Level 1, existence. Here you just check to see if there is evidence of the work.

• Level 2, structure. The end product is in 14 parts. Are there 14 parts?

• Level 3, content. This category is reserved for areas of risk and where the work leading up to the milestone has issues.

Update the rating as time goes by.

How do you review a level 3 milestone? Obviously, it depends upon the nature of the project and that of the specific milestone. However, many milestones are reports, analysis, and similar things. You don’t have time to read all of the documents. Also, how could you determine where there are problems and weaknesses? A proven method is to have the two team members who performed the work make a presentation of their work in a lessons learned meeting. During the meeting watch their body language and listen to their tone of voice. Look for topics that they gloss over. This will tell you a great deal about the parts of the document or end product that should be reviewed in detail after the meeting. Of course, if you have followed the method of successive outlining that was discussed earlier, then the problems will be lessened.