Milestones are Handoffs

I taught a workshop about transitioning to Agile earlier this week. One of the things that's difficult for many project managers to recognize is that milestones must be deliverables--otherwise, it's too hard to know when something is done.

One of the participants had a slightly puzzled look on his face when I said that, so I'm not now thinking that another way to think about milestones is to call them handoffs. If everyone has the idea that their milestone is really a handoff to someone else in the project, you're more likely to get to "done" for a milestone.

Updated later Friday, changed a "not" to a "now." Thanks Jason, for letting me know I made not enough sense :-)