(Transfer) Three important concepts of project management: checkpoints, milestones, and baselines

There are three important concepts related to time in the project life cycle. These three concepts are: Checkpoint (Checkpoint), Milestone (Mile Stone) and Baseline (Base Line), they together describe when (When) to the project what kind of control.

1: Checkpointing

refers to checking the project at a specified time interval, comparing the difference between the actual and the planned, and making adjustments according to the difference. The checkpoint can be regarded as a fixed "sampling" time point, and the time interval varies according to the length of the project cycle. If the frequency is too small, it will lose its meaning, and if the frequency is too high, it will increase the management cost. A common interval is once a week, with the project manager holding regular meetings and submitting weekly reports.

2: Milestones are signs of

completion of phased work, and milestones are different for different types of projects. Milestones are of great significance in project management. Let's use an example to illustrate:

Scenario 1: You ask a programmer to write a module in a week. You may be very leisurely for the first 3 days, but you have to work overtime to program the next 2 days. At the weekend, it was found that there were errors and omissions in the system, and it had to be revised and reworked, so overtime on the weekend was necessary.

Scenario 2: Actually, you have another option, which is to list all the requirements with the programmer on Monday, and ask the business people to review, then you may find the omission and modify it immediately; ask the programmer to complete the module design on Tuesday and confirm it by you , If there are no major problems, programmers can program on Wednesday and Thursday. At the same time, prepare the test case by yourself and complete the test on Friday; generally after the requirements and design confirmation, if the programmer is qualified, there will be no big problem, and you can rest on the weekend. The second method adds two milestones of "requirement" and "design", which seems to add extra work, but it is actually very meaningful: first, for some complex projects, it is necessary to gradually approach the goal, the middle of the milestone output The "deliverable" is the result of each approximation and the object of control. Without milestones, it's hard to wonder "how are they doing" in the middle. Second, the project risk can be reduced. Through early review, problems in requirements and designs can be found in advance, reducing the possibility of later modification and rework. In addition, income can also be confirmed in stages according to the output results of each stage, so as to avoid losing everything. Third, most people have the habit of “relaxing before and after” when working, and milestones mandate what to do in a certain period of time, so as to rationally distribute work and refine management “granularity”.



3: Baseline

Refers to a state (or a group) of configuration items that have entered a state of formal control through formal review at different points in the project life cycle. Baselines are actually some important milestones, but related deliverables go through formal reviews and serve as benchmarks and starting points for subsequent work. Changes need to be controlled once the baseline is established.

Important checkpoints are milestones, and important milestones that require customer confirmation are baselines. In our actual project, the weekly meeting is the manifestation of the checkpoint, and the high-level stage report is the manifestation of the baseline.