OpenBlend Solutions

Milestones enable you to break down your Objectives into discrete steps. This helps you be clear about what steps are involved in completing the overall Objective, and track your progress in a more granular way. This article walks you through what Milestones are, what you can use them for and how to add them to your Objectives in OpenBlend. 

What are Milestones?

Dictionary definition of Milestone
1) a stone set up beside a road to mark the distance in miles to a particular place. 
2) a significant stage or event in the development of something.

So, thinking about the definition of the mile markers, marking the distance on a roadside, you can use Objective Milestones to mark significant tasks or stages as you progress towards your ultimate goal. 

In OpenBlend, when you update the progress on each Milestone, you will see your overall Objective progress automatically update.

Benefits of milestones

• Milestones enable a larger scale objective to be broken down into manageable chunks
• They facilitate regular progress and quality reviews that keep you on track
• They help you plan your time and have a clear view of what needs to be done over a period

If your organisation uses OKRs (Objectives and Key Results), you may also use Milestones as the Key Results with an Objective. 

How you can use Milestones within your Objectives

Your Objective

When creating objectives, the WHAT needs to be as transparent and clear as it can be - imagine someone reading the objective who doesn’t work in your organisation or area. Would the objective make sense? If so, you’re good to go! 

An easy way to ensure that you include enough detail is to follow the acronym S.M.A.R.T. - Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time-bound.

The Milestones

You can use Milestones to mark stages in a project, for example, discovery/research, planning, executing and debrief or you could use them to mark key results that you need to achieve over the year, for example, a Milestone for each month or quarter of the year. 

How to set-up Objectives with Milestones in OpenBlend

Navigate to your OpenBlend "My Profile" and click on the "+ Add New" button in the top navigation. From the menu, select "Add Objective". 

You will then be presented with the Objective editor window, you can follow the steps below to create your Objective. 

1. Add a Title for your Objective
    
2. Add the Objective Description
    
3. Click the "Next" button
    
4. Add the Start Date
    
5. Add the Due Date
    
6. Choose "Milestones (recommended)" as your measure of success
    
7. Align your Objective to a Parent Objective (if applicable)
     
8. Add any Tags (if applicable)
    
9. Once you are happy with the set-up, click the "Create Objective" button
    
10. Once your Objective is created, you will be able to set up the Milestones from within the Objective.
    • To create a Milestone, click the "+ Add New Milestone" button
    • Give your Milestone a Title
    • Set the importance of the Objective
    • Set the Due Date
    • Choose your measure for success
      • Percentage
      • Currency (GBP, USD, EUR)
      • Number
      • Completed Yes/No
    • Set the Start Value
    • Set the Target Value
    • Click the "Create Milestone" button
    • To create a another Milestone, click the "Add Another Milestone" button and repeat the above stages. 

Examples

We have come up with two examples below for you, to help you understand how you might use Milestones within your Objectives.