I agree with the notion that missing milestones are intrinsically considered failures. Being late, or unable to produce results, is never something that is desired. However, my own experiences missing milestones have been learning experiences, and usually, lead to structural changes that make similar failures less likely in the future. I feel that in any field, working to prevent a missed milestone is priority number one. However, having a contingency plan and being able to learn from such failures is crucial for long-term success and should be the focus if a milestone is being missed.

In Capstone I and II, there are several milestones set to ensure completion of the project at the end of the 2 semester course. Here, if milestones were met its marked completed but if it is missed; a team must have a contingency plan to ensure that the project isn't stalled. So a missed milestone is a failure if and only if there is no contingency plan to solve it and keep the project going to meet the deadline. The contingency plan can be a solution to a problem that may arise or to move on to the next stage of the project that does not concern the missed milestone. Therefore, a missed milestone does not really spell failure of the project it can just be a setback that can be solved with the proper execution of a contingency plan or set of contingency plans.

The projects that is have worked on, the milestones were the body of the project. I think that missing milestones can result in failure of the project. At least in the projects that I have worked on all the milestones were extremely critical and were considered in the panning initiation and planning phase as critical. I do think that they can be less critical milestone like filing, meeting etc. that are not part of the projects major requirements. Some milestones may require the completion of other milestone and the project may not be able to advance until these milestones are meet.

I would say depends but I would also tend towards failure. Working in industry, I have learned you cannot miss a deadline. I have worked 11-12 hours and weekend to make sure the deadlines are met. According to me, missing a milestone is definitely, a failure. I mean yes, you have to work your butt off to finish your work, but i guess that's why you are getting that check. So if you're not meeting you deadlines, it is 100% your fault. I have worked with pharmas so if you dont meet the deadline for your project, it will be hard for the next phase to start and they will miss the deadline too.

When a milestone is missed, it means that something pertaining to the project was misplaced. This could be resources, foresight, proper documentation, or failure to plan for setbacks. If the missed milestone points out a deficit in the product that would not otherwise have been known, it is a project success. If a missed milestone was made up in time to not delay the project, it is a project success. Despite this, I believe that at its core, missed milestones represent a failure on some managerial level and that constitutes them as manager failures. So, while some missed milestones may be successes in terms of the product, all of them are failures for the management.

Missing a milestone leads to failure of a project. Milestones can be used to determine the success of your project and super effective way to manage multiple projects at the same time effectively. All milestones should be specific and measurable and they should clearly identify what needs to be achieved . The project lifecycle is most likely subject to change,milestones should be changed accordingly, some milestones may be eliminated, some may be modified and new ones may appear. Milestones are extremely project specific, even if you are doing the same type of projects . Each project has different stakeholders, different clients with different views, and different deliverables in terms of significance . As Milestones helps to measure progress and they must be defined at the start of the project missing it can cause the project get out of control. Without a project milestone tracking we are just monitoring the tasks without following the right path in the project. If you begin missing key milestones, evaluate where the project is falling off course, determine how you can make up ground to get back on track.

Regardless of the situation, missing a milestone is a failure. There may be some benefits if it was a product performance or design issue or scope creep but for reasons apart from this, it isn't beneficial to the project (Please correct me if I missed any other reasons that would also result in a benefit.) For example, let's say you're working on a medical device that is failing product performance, forcing you to redesign the product and missing key milestones. You end up getting the benefit of finding a design flaw but ultimately lose out on the resources and time spent. It could have been prevented if more time was put in the initial design but now, the phase gated process needs to be restarted which could be months or years of work.

By missing milestones, you end up using unplanned resources, delaying projects if the milestone was on the critical path or tasks have to be restarted, possibly going over budget and if it was a problem in your control (scheduling issues, scope creep, incorrect resourcing) reliability as project manager or associate. Ultimately, missing a milestone improves the product but I feel it does improve the project in anyway.

I will say, it does improve future projects, and can be used as a learning tool for more preventative measures.

There's a lot of people who've said that missing a milestone is a failure, but it's not just that, it's your failure. I don't believe this is always the case. Is it technically a failure? Of course. However, there will always be situations that are out of your control and all you can do is have planned for it and set another milestone in order to get back on track, even if it takes more work than usual on your part. As long as the project is back on track by the next few milestones, or at the very least close to it, and you finish on time then you can consider it overall a success. The only "learning opportunity" from this would be planning for such an eventuality at the start of the project. Having milestones with more leeway allows you to counteract such pitfalls. Finishing milestones early never hurt anything, but finishing them late is an issue. Planning requires you to have the foresight to see such eventualities and if you can work them out before they happen you'll be a more effective engineer/manager.

I do not consider that missing a milestone a failure or a success, it is bad but I feel it is a wakeup call that “Hey, you did not achieve the goal you set for completing the project. You have to do something different because what you are doing is not working.” In capstone, we had to write weekly reports that included any missed milestone, if any group missed a milestone their project would be delayed which is bad because we all had deadlines in completing our projects. Missing a milestone is not a failure or success but they can lead to failure or success, depending on the group if the group restrategize their plan by simplifying their goal task they may complete the project. However, if they don’t restrategize and keep missing milestones they will fail because they didn’t complete their project due to constant delays.

This depends on how critical that milestone is. Some milestone will have a larger impact on the overall project and some not as much. In general missing a milestone is definitely a failure, but in life it is important to learn from failures and see what your team can improve on to prevent this from happening again.

Missing critical milestones such as deadlines can push back the deadlines of other critical milestones and delay the completion of the project. However, there can be ways to override this problem. Sometimes, you're able to figure out a way to complete the project on time by somehow cutting down the time needed to complete other aspects of the project, in which case, the missed milestone is not a big deal. I would say most of the time, missed milestones or deadlines negatively impact the results of the project.

There are also instances where a missed milestone gives an opportunity to figure out how to improve the project. For example, if you missed a milestone and you've realized that the structure of the project should change, then it's important to make those adjustments to make the final product better. In this case, I wouldn't say the missed milestone is a failure even though the completion of the project was delayed.

Missing a milestone can mean failure but it does not mean that the project is over. Many times, if a project is massive for a company, the can face complex obstacles and may fail a milestone in the way, but it can be taken as an opportunity to re-evaluate the plan, consider possible alternatives, and ultimately improve the process. Even though it can cause lots of stress, the team should be prepared to face the risks of the project and have backup plans.

It can also happen that missing a milestone can give the hint that the project is not going in the right direction and that it needs to be completely redirected. Either case, the team should take the opportunity to lear, and grow.

I believe that in any project, setting milestone is one of the most important aspects of the project. Milestone planning not only indicates the progress of the project but it maintains the level of accuracy of the project and motivates the team. At times while achieving milestones, we end up discovering new problems or ideas which could bring the success in a project. This may delay accomplishing the milestone that is in the schedule. Therefore, I think missing a milestone is considered both failure and success depending on the situation. However, when there is no any new discovering occurs and still missed the milestone then it is a risk of failure. Failing to meet the deadline for the project to be delivered will set back not only a project manager but also team members.

As Dr. Simon said in an earlier lecture, the end result or product of your project is never exactly the same as what you planned it to be. One of the reason for that is/could be because of milestones missed. Now, the change in the project can be a good thing or a set back depending on how well one can compensate for the missed milestone. For example, your team is working on building a table. midway through the project, you find out that you missed the deadline to buy the legs of the table from the only vendor that had them and now they are out of stock. So you compensate by buying another set of table legs and it can end up being much more functional and elegant (in which case the change is good) or you come to the finding that no other legs fit your table and you must start the design over again. So, missing a milestone can go both ways to help or harm a project. It depends for every single project. This is why in the PERT chart, we draw out other options or pathways to take if anything is missed and would cause harm to the project. It's better to be prepared for such cases and just not hope that maybe something good will come out of the milestone being missed.

I do not think that missing milestones is necessarily a failure. To me, milestones are sort of like soft checkpoints in a project. You should do everything in your power to make sure that the certain set of tasks is completed at that certain planned date for that milestone, but if it is delayed there is still a large potential for the project to still be completed adequately at the original planned end date. You may need to adjust some of the consequential tasks dependent on that milestone, but it may not even be apart of the critical path and so may not even delay any other activities. There are just too many extraneous factors that can and will derail your project, so you should not be devastated if a small milestone is missed. I learned this lesson in my senior Capstone project. There were obstacles popping up which we never would have been able to properly prepare for, but it all depends how you can respond to that adversity and get back on track.