Set milestones and gates

A milestone is a task you have marked as one. That is the whole mechanism, and it is deliberate: milestones live inside the plan that delivers them rather than in a separate list that drifts.

Setting one

1. In the work plan, choose Add Milestone, or mark an existing task as a milestone.
2. Give it a date that means something. A milestone dated at the end of the phase because that was convenient is not a commitment.
3. Give it an owner. Milestones without owners are the ones that slip quietly.
4. Where the charter is in play, say which objective it delivers, so the line of sight from deal thesis to dated commitment stays intact.

Milestones and phases

Phases are the fixed spine of the project, set by its type, and cannot be renamed. Milestones are yours. A phase such as Day 1 is a date the whole deal turns on; the milestones inside it are the things that have to be true for that date to hold.

Gates

A gate is a milestone you treat as a decision point rather than a delivery: the moment a steering committee says continue or stop. The platform records that decision and its date. It will not make the decision for you, and it will not compute a go or no-go score, by design.

Where they show up

On the Roadmap, in the project dashboard, in the steerco and board packs from Report Centre, and on the Charter where they are linked to an objective. Move a milestone date once and every one of those follows, which is the reason for keeping them in the plan rather than in a separate deck.