Project 2007: Creating a Milestone

Throughout a project's life cycle, you'll most likely have built-in checkpoints. These checkpoints can define different areas, such as the end of phases, the passing of a set amount of time, or any other criteria that you, as the project manager, define. Deciding on milestones, their dates, and what happens if milestones are missed is part of your job as a project manager, and it is a difficult task. However, creating a milestone in Microsoft Office Project 2007 is easy.

Milestones can be marked as such within the Task Information box. Or, perhaps an easier method is to set a zero (0) duration on any task you'd like to designate as a milestone.

To create a milestone in Project 2007, follow these steps:

1. Create a new task in the Entry Table.
2. Type a descriptive name. You want the task to serve specifically as a marker for a checkpoint (milestone).
3. Set the duration of the task to zero days in the Entry table.

Milestones are displayed visually on the Gantt Chart as diamonds. This makes milestones easily recognizable as a project checkpoint and easy to locate in any Gantt Chart.

Although modifying a task's duration to zero days automatically denotes that task as a milestone in Office Project 2007, you can mark a task of any duration as a milestone, displaying the same diamond shape. To mark a task of any duration as a milestone, follow these steps:

1. Select a task in the Entry Table.
2. Double-click the task to open the Task Information dialog box.
3. In the Task Information dialog box, click the Advanced tab.
4. Select the Mark Task As Milestone check box.
5. Click OK.

After you have denoted a task has as a milestone, it appears in the Gantt Chart as a diamond on the task's scheduled finish date.

With permission from Microsoft Press, this article content was excerpted from the book, Managing Projects with Microsoft Office Project 2007 (Self-Paced Training Kit for Exam 70-632).