During a project, we set milestones to achieve. However, due to certain circumstances, we cannot meet the deadline that results in missing a milestone. Missing a milestone can be either a failure by the team or it makes the overall project better by ensuring the product is safe to release in the market.
Please share your opinion on whether missing a milestone is consider to a failure or success in terms of improving the overall project?
Missing a milestone should only be seen as a failure if you do not continue on with your project. There are many variables that may cause these things to happen such as finances, bad planning, lack of strategy, poor leadership, etc. These are things you learn from in order to continue a successful business. You see which area performed the weakest during development, improve it, and move on from there. I also believe if an owner has a true passion in the project that they are investing in, they will keep striving to finish it until it is a success. With a second chance, you will also be given more time to look over all of the successes and failures achieved and improve everything. With this being said, the final outcome of the project may be more impressive than expected.
@bjv9 I would have to disagree that there is no instance a milestone can be considered a success. While I do understand that involved members have the responsibility to execute due diligence early on in the process, I don't think one can always account for every mistake no matter how big or small. I would consider the safety and efficacy of a product much more meaningful than its ability to meet a deadline. For instance, if a product does launch on time but afterwards is recalled for a particular reason, the company can now face heavy fines, additional time and resources to resolve the situation, and even loss of customer faith in the company (an immeasurable offense). Had the issue been confronted early on, even if it meant missing a milestone, it would have saved the company a lot of time and resources which is why I think it's more important to look at the bigger picture instead of a singular missed milestone event.
In a working environment I believe missing a milestone is considered a failure. In the project, there are goals that need to be met in order for the project to continue. If step A isn’t done and needs to be for B to start, now everyone who was supposed to start the second part cannot, and cannot get paid or if they do get paid, people from step A will not until they finish. It becomes a costly mistake and also makes the project fall behind. Its easy to fall behind on a project but very difficult to recover in order to be on time or ahead. Not only does it hurt the project, but clients will be less willing to work with you as they could see you as not a good asset to future projects.
In an academic environment, considering the last year and a half we had, I do not think missing a milestone during a project was a complete failure. Reason being is that with covid , many of us could not to proper research or projects and had to learn to adapt. During this phase in our lives, I think that while missing a milestone meant we were behind in work, it also gave us the ability to persevere, think outside the box, and work under extreme/unforeseen conditions. I think when I was an undergraduate student, trying to do my lab experiments with covid, although I felt constantly behind, it taught me to continue pushing, re-analyze my projects, and then find more efficient ways or less costly tools to complete my projects from home. In contrast, in an academia environment, sometimes missing milestones is not the worst because it allows for learning from mistakes rather than making them in the industry or real life.
From my experience working in the industry, a missed milestone is looked at as a failure in the Initiation and planning phases of the project. As we discussed in lecture one, working on a tight schedule is a part of working in the industry because missing a milestone may cost the company and gets the project to be under budget. It depends on the step that was missed whether it is a critical step or a noncritical step to decide how the project will proceed. This failure can be overcome if it occurred in a noncritical step by working simultaneously on the missed milestone along with the milestone targetted to be met for the period. On the other hand, if the missed milestone is considering a critical step, that will be a setback for the whole project that will be hard to recover from and might change that whole schedule of the project and delays it.
Milestones are goals set up by a team at the beginning of a project, for when a specific task should be completed. If a milestone is missed, it could result in the project being delayed, which is often viewed as a failure for the project. However, I would argue that missing a milestone is a success in improving the overall project. While it may delay the project, it also forces the team working on a project to consider why that milestone was missed, and to stop to take the time to reevaluate the project, and what could be causing the delays. An example of this for medical device development was when my Senior Design team missed a milestone for developing a new gear system for our exoskeleton project. When this happened, it forced us to stop and consider if this gear system was really the best mode of action for the product. At the time, we had less than four months of the class left, and the gear system was a recent element we decided to add that was not in our original scope. This system also introduced new safety concerns that we would need to take into consideration as well. So when the milestone was missed, it made my team realize that scope creep had occurred and the project was becoming unfeasible, so we decided to drop the gear system and go with our original scope for the project. In this case, missing a milestone was an overall success for our project because it helped us get back on track for completing the project on time and getting rid of our unattainable goals for the project. While it may not always be the case, I believe that more often than not, missing a milestone can be a success in terms of improving an overall project.
Missing milestone is and should be considered a failure as you are the one who setup the milestone to achieve completion in a set deadline. If a set milestone is missed than the chances of the deadline being missed also increases significantly. The only reason why I consider missing milestones a failure is because of that risk being increased. By missing deadlines client relations are also affected, meaning it can result in loosing business which is biggest failure once can do in a corporate setting.
As many have stated before, I do agree that missing a milestone is going to be typically looked at as a failure. Regardless of the reason for missing the milestone, it reflects poor planning or poor execution and can often result in delays for future milestones like the commercial release of the product. However, I do believe that it is not worth it to push for a potentially unsafe or harmful product for the sake of meeting a deadline. So, despite potentially causing delays, the safety of the consumer or the quality of the product should never be compromised as this could only lead to more significant failures down the line. However, as we should be learning from our mistakes, a missed milestone can be used as a learning opportunity for future projects or upcoming tasks to ensure that the team does not encounter another similar missed milestone or failure again.
In my opinion, missing a milestone in a project can be considered one of the biggest failures. The date given as the deadline is a date that is generally decided by considering other stages in the project. Missing the specified deadline by any department will also cause disruption in its work in other departments. At the same time, the release of the targeted product to the market may be delayed due to the missed deadline. The product desired to be grown within the deadline determined in the project affects not only the manufacturer but also other companies. For these reasons, I think it's a failure to miss a deadline that has been decided.
Thanks!
According to a study done in 2018 by Altahtooh et al. the main reason milestones are met is through decision making based on a defined problem, collection and analysis of data, and formulating a solution in accordance to these findings. Therefore in a sense not meeting a milestone according to a predetermined timeline isn't essential. Although corporations and industries want to be mindful of the resources being utilized for these projects and developments, a milestone is based upon qualitative determination. If a milestone took a year and a half to reach instead of one year, the milestone was still achieved, however, the failure to properly gather and articulate critical information regarding the toxicity of a proposed biomaterial could result in the complete collapse of not just one but multiple milestones. Some even devastating a project to the point it has to be abandoned because too many resources were incorrectly used.
Source:
Altahtooh, U., & Alaskar, T. (2018). Understanding Relationship between Milestone and Decision-Making in Project Management: A Qualitative Study among Project Managers in Saudi Arabia. Int. J. Bus. Manag, 13, 184.
I get your line of reasoning as to why missing a milestone is a failure. I guess another way to look at the situation is what a project management team and regulatory standards considered to be a failure. This is important because "missing" a milestone could be based upon maintaining a certain timeline, not completing defined objectives, having your proposed device recalled, etc. Important insight can be gained from mistakes, failures, and delays. It can in turn end up impacting not only a single project, but an entire sector if the right people are studying the trends, patterns, and unique instances. Due to the sensitive environment medical devices have the potential to work in, delays due to safety concerns and quality standards should be given a grace pass from clients. However, realistically not every client or investor will be so understanding this is why adequate planning and researching is required. Due to the severity in losses that can be felt if a medical device is recalled, guidelines regarding milestone delays and failures should be outlined.
I think this question is contingent on a specific scenario. However, while many consider missing deadlines an automatic failure, I believe it can offer some success in terms of the overall project. While it is ideal to meet deadlines, if it is missed in order to conduct more research, make improvements to the overall project, and prevent issues further down the line, then I consider that a success. One thing that is extremely important to do if there is any possibility of missing a deadline is to communicate with the team. I think that communication is extremely important for the team during this time to prevent anger and stress as well as to reconstruct additional deadlines for the project.
A project milestone is a management tool that is used to delineate a point in a project schedule. These points can note the start and finish of a project, and mark the completion of a major phase of work. Milestones can be used to symbolize anything that has started or finished, though it’s primarily used as a scheduling tool. If a milestone focuses on major progress points in a project, you can see how it is useful in scheduling. Just as tasks break a larger project into manageable parts, milestones break off project phases to help project managers plan, schedule, and execute them. Milestones provide a way to more accurately estimate the time it will take to complete your project by marking important dates and events, making them essential for precise project planning and scheduling. Because of their versatility, they’re an important element of project documents such as the project schedule, project charter, and project plan. They are also used in scheduling methodologies, such as the Critical Path Method, or project management tools like Gantt charts, which can determine major scheduling periods. With milestones, you can better calculate the slack in your project by segmenting the project timeline into intervals, or smaller time frames to control and track progress. Project management software, like ProjectManager, makes it easy to build a schedule with milestones. Use our online Gantt charts to quickly build a project schedule with phases, subtasks, milestones, and dependencies. Milestones, like tasks, can be linked. That is when the phase of one milestone cannot begin until the completion of the phase before it. That way you’re not blocking team members by having them wait or by not allowing them what they need to move forward with their tasks. With that being said, I do believe missing a milestone can lead to failure. There are times when missing these milestones can be avoided, and conducted a proper evaluation can attest to that. Each milestone plays a significant role and there are tools to help aid in the success of each role. should these tools not be used or wait until the last minute to use them can be detrimental, hence why I believe it will/can lead to failure.
Yes missing a milestone can be considered a failure, since there can be strict deadlines in place to get a product/project out in a timely matter. This can be due to the fault of the team, slacking off and falling behind, incorrect methods being done and etc. But I don't think it is necessarily a failure when milestones are missed to ensure the safety and quality of a product. For instance, multiple tests have to be rerun because of inaccurate results, and they wait time for these results could push the product launch back a few days. I would rather have a product push back but have a good product in the in, then push a poor product onto market when more work could've been done.
It is the opinion of the writer that missing a milestone may not necessarily be considered a failure and could actually result in promised success. For example, considering the circumstance that may have caused the delay in completing the project, a delay could in fact be a better solution for the purpose of delaying mechanical errors. In the event that a company was planning to launch a new product on a certain date, if the employees found errors that could result in a recall in the product sooner or later, it is the opinion of the writer that missing the milestone of launching the device on a specific date would ultimately save the company’s reputation, and would prevent any unnecessary accidents from occurring. It is the opinion of the writer that missing the milestone would only be considered to be a failure if the company launches a newly developed product, knowing that there were errors that could result in serious consequences and still decided to continue with production.
It is the opinion of the writer that missing a milestone may not necessarily be considered a failure and could actually result in promised success. For example, considering the circumstance that may have caused the delay in completing the project, a delay could in fact be a better solution for the purpose of delaying mechanical errors. In the event that a company was planning to launch a new product on a certain date, if the employees found errors that could result in a recall in the product sooner or later, it is the opinion of the writer that missing the milestone of launching the device on a specific date would ultimately save the company’s reputation, and would prevent any unnecessary accidents from occurring. It is the opinion of the writer that missing the milestone would only be considered to be a failure if the company launches a newly developed product, knowing that there were errors that could result in serious consequences and still decided to continue with production.
