MUSING ON MILESTONES

To Weight, or Not to Weight?

That is the Question! ^[1]

COMMENTARY

By Dr. Kenneth Smith, PMP

Honolulu, Hawaii
& Manila, The Philippines

Emulating the great Elizabethan bard in response to ‘Kik’ Piney’s critique in last month’s PMWJ^[2] — of my advocacy for ‘weightless’ milestones to measure & monitor project performance — and to expound on my rationale for favoring them; ‘I speak not to disprove what Crispin spoke; But here I am to speak what I do know.’ ^[3]

With his extensive project management expertise and experience, Kik applied his customary thoroughness to subject the concept of milestone weightlessness to a rigorous alpha stress test – albeit theoretical — to assess its utility; and reached the ‘worst case’ conclusion, as follows:

“. . . if the project manager chooses for whatever good or bad reason to define more early milestones in the project than later ones, and if each of these early milestones is therefore easier than the later ones to achieve, the reports on initial progress using the unweighted approach will be falsely optimistic.” [Emphasis mine.]

In that, Kik is unarguably correct!

However, even though ‘amateur’ & ‘accidental’ Project Managers (PMs) abound who should know better — but don’t — I cannot conceive of anyone but an absolute charlatan concocting, and a befuddled or blatantly-incompetent bureaucrat buying a real-world project with its latter phase bereft of milestone proxies to track ‘substantive project implementation progress’^[4] — such as the ‘worst case’ one depicted by the scenario in Figure 1 .

Here is a 90% ‘up front’ Plan, with early milestones A through I indicating key activities scheduled to get the contract crew, equipment, building materials & furnishings on the job site; but no further activities are monitored; only milestone J 100% “Construction Complete.”

This unbelievable ‘worst case’ scenario also violates another PM ‘best practice’ tenet;^[5]  namely that several milestones be devised & scheduled to denote during each reporting period initiation of activities or their completion, transfer of responsibility for them, or attainment of key objectives. Such milestones all serve as leading indicators to facilitate monitoring, reporting and follow-up. Conveyed qualitatively and quantitatively, as well as depicted graphically during implementation that information will highlight areas of concern with performance vs. the original project plan.  Subsequently, if reports indicate the completion target may be untenable; managers are alerted to pinpoint problems and — if feasible — initiate follow-up corrective action where warranted.

There is, of course, some weighting involved in an unweighted unitarian milestone approach — in order to determine the percentage weight of each milestone as a proportion of the total number of milestones in the project.  For example, given 50 milestones in a project, each milestone would be weighted as

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To cite this Article: Smith, K. (2024). Musing on Milestones: To Weight, or Not to Weight? That is the Question! PM World Journal, Vol. XIII, Issue VIII, August.  Available online at https://pmworldlibrary.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/pmwj144-Aug2024-Smith-musings-on-weighted-milestones.pdf

About the Author

Dr. Kenneth Smith

Honolulu, Hawaii
& Manila, The Philippines

Initially a US Civil Service Management Intern, then a management analyst & systems specialist with the US Defense Department, Ken subsequently had a career as a senior foreign service officer — management & evaluation specialist, project manager, and in-house facilitator/trainer — with the US Agency for International Development (USAID).  Ken assisted host country governments in many countries to plan, monitor and evaluate projects in various technical sectors; working ‘hands-on’ with their officers as well as other USAID personnel, contractors and NGOs.  Intermittently, he was also a team leader &/or team member to conduct project, program & and country-level portfolio analyses and evaluations.

Concurrently, Ken had an active dual career as Air Force ready-reservist in Asia (Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines) as well as the Washington D.C. area; was Chairman of a Congressional Services Academy Advisory Board (SAAB); and had additional duties as an Air Force Academy Liaison Officer.  He retired as a ‘bird’ colonel.

After retirement from USAID, Ken was a project management consultant for ADB, the World Bank, UNDP and USAID.

He earned his DPA (Doctor of Public Administration) from the George Mason University (GMU) in Virginia, his MS from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT Systems Analysis Fellow, Center for Advanced Engineering Study), and BA & MA degrees in Government & International Relations from the University of Connecticut (UCONN).  A long-time member of the Project Management Institute (PMI) and IPMA-USA, Ken is a Certified Project Management Professional (PMP®) and a member of the PMI®-Honolulu and Philippines Chapters.

Ken’s book — Project Management PRAXIS (available from Amazon) — includes many innovative project management tools & techniques; and describes a “Toolkit” of related templates available directly from him at kenfsmith@aol.com on proof of purchase of PRAXIS.

To view other works by Ken Smith, visit his author showcase in the PM World Library at https://pmworldlibrary.net/authors/dr-kenneth-smith/

[1] Parody on Hamlet’s soliloquy, Hamlet Act III, Scene I, William Shakespeare
[2] Piney, C. (2024). On the Subject of Better Progress Measurement, Letter to the Editor, PM World Journal, Vol. XIII, Issue VII, July. https://pmworldlibrary.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/pmwj143-Jul2024-Piney-on-better-progress-measurement-Letter-to-Editor.pdf
[3] Marc Antony on Brutus, Julius Caesar, Act 3, Scene 2, William Shakespeare
[4] In terms of commencement, attainment or completion of incremental project activities – to address professor Joad’s plea for more precision. [Fortuitously, Kik’s reference to Professor Joad rekindled long-dormant memories when – as an English Grammar School boy during the 1940’s – I was an avid listener to C.E.M. Joad on the BBC’s “Brain’s Trust;” as well as another program — “Transatlantic Quiz” — with a similar but sometimes more light-hearted theme, hosted by Alistair Cooke. Thanks, Kik! Here’s an unforgettable question posed to Quiz contestants back then: “Which eponymous character would make a very poor goal keeper?” Answer at the end of this article.]  But I digress!
[5] Albeit also frequently ignored in the real world