Welcome back. So far you've identified and added tasks to your project plan. You've gathered information from relevant project documentation, online research, and other people on the project team. In this video, I'll discuss how to order your task list and share several techniques for identifying milestones. Maybe you've already identified a few milestones on your own. These techniques will be helpful to keep in mind when you're working through the activity after this video. Let's start with ordering your task list. By now, you should have a long list of project tasks. To finalize the list, review what you have so far. Check for any remaining larger tasks that could still be broken down into smaller subtasks, and add those tasks to your list. When you think you've listed all the necessary project tasks in your project plan, the next step is to arrange the tasks in the order that they need to be completed. Determining the proper task order will help you assign start and end dates for each task. When determining priority, first consider the basic order of operations. In other words, what is the natural sequence of tasks? Are there any dependencies or prerequisites? For example, you can't train staff on how to use the tablets before they've been installed and tested. To help you order tasks, you can have a conversation with your team to uncover dependencies or prerequisites from each person who owns a task. You might ask each person what needs to happen before they can start their work. Similarly, you can search the internet for information with terms such as "prerequisites for launching new hardware." After you've thought through the order, adjust the tasks in your project plan to reflect this. To do this, simply rearrange the spreadsheet rows to set the order for your tasks. For example, the task of researching different models of menu tablets needs to happen before the task of signing a contract with the menu tablet supplier. Makes sense, right? You probably wouldn't want to sign a contract with the supplier before you'd researched every possible option. Once your tasks are in order, you'll begin identifying milestones. Remember that milestones are important points within the project schedule that indicate progress. Milestones usually signify the completion of the deliverable or phase of the project. To determine milestones within your list of tasks, identify points in the project plan where you and your team can evaluate the work completed so far. For example, if there are multiple tasks related to menu tablet installation, a milestone might be the first internal test run of the tablet's ordering capabilities. These types of milestones may be the same as some of the deliverables you listed earlier. Another way to determine milestones is to identify important tasks that your stakeholders have a particular interest in. To do this, review your notes from previous conversations with stakeholders, and identify tasks that stakeholders seemed eager to know more about or wanted to review when complete. If your stakeholder has a high interest in a given task or point in the project, label that task as a milestone. For example, one of the Sauce and Spoon stakeholders might be interested in knowing when a tablet supplier has been selected since that decision will impact the budget. As you review your list, you should also identify tasks that carry a high risk or signal the completion of a phase or major task. These tasks are often considered milestones because they have a major impact on the project's overall progress. For example, the first successful test run of the menu tablet's ordering capabilities might be considered a milestone. Amazing job. Let's review. Once you've listed all of the necessary tasks in your project plan, you'll need to rearrange the tasks in the order in which your team needs to complete them. It's also important to consider the natural sequence of tasks, as well as the dependencies or prerequisites for each task. Once your tasks are in order, you'll need to identify milestones. When determining milestones, it's crucial to identify the points in the project plan where you can evaluate the work completed so far, identify the tasks that stakeholders have a particular interest in, and identify tasks that carry a high risk or signal the completion of a phase or major task. Okay, ready to get back into your project plan? Head to the next activity to reorder your list of project tasks and identify your project milestones. Then, meet me in the next video where I'll take you through adding time estimates to each task.
