All About Milestones

This page describes the concept of agile project milestones

What is a Project Milestone?

A milestone is a concept to understand in Agile product development. Milestones are markers of progress in product and service development. They may need to be completed multiple times, or adjusted as teams progress towards release cycles of their products.

Phase vs. Milestone

Agile teams should rely on "milestones", not "phases".

"Phases" in project work assume that work starts and stops during a specific timeframe. "Phases" assumes that the work is sequential with certain deliverables needing to be delivered after another after a fixed time (see the Waterfall Ways of Work).

"Milestones", however, do not imply timeframe. They are simply a subset of deliverables that represent important progress on the way to launching products and services. They should iterate over time. "Milestones" is more akin to Agile than "phases" because multiple milestones can be sought in parallel, while phases of work implies one must be done before the next can begin (see the Agile Ways of Work).

Iterative Product Development

Each release (MVP or MMP) includes multiple milestones along the way that teams must hit. There can be an unlimited number of MVP's on the way to an MMP. Teams launch multiple MVP's in order to remain iterative in their adjustments of plans. Each MVP solves minimal, important problems, and is released quickly so that teams can learn from users. The feedback that teams collect should inform the plans and vision for the next MVP.