Metaphorically, milestones are markers on your transformation from one state to another. Millstones are useless, heavy, burdens that you can’t put down.
Project plans that seek to set out project milestones often end up burdening themselves with millstones. The mistake is confusing the transformation with the project. Millstones track the journey, milestones track the destination.
Things like “Phase 1” can’t be a milestone because there is no guarantee that completing Phase 1 means that you’ve made any progress towards your goal. Yes, you worked hard and delivered a lot of code. You’ve done the things you said you would do when you originally planned the project. Can you objectively show that you’re closer to your destination?
Milestones, by contrast, are objective, external, measures of progress. “Customers can use a feature” is a milestone. “First paying customer” is a milestone. They are points you expect to cross during the transformation because they demonstrate progress. You can declare that some milestones are irrelevant, you can set new milestones, but you can’t move the milestones themselves.
Project based millstones like Phase 1 encourage movement and gaming to meet artificial deadlines. Can’t complete a feature in time, just move it to Phase 2 and keep the project on track. Phase 1 encourages wasteful death marches so that developers and project managers can report that the project is moving forward.
You can put down your millstones wherever and whenever you want. Makes no difference to anyone or anything other than the artificial constraints you put on your project. Today is a great time to let go of the weight.
