Progress towards a milestone

[NKumar2010]

Hi, 

  I have a bunch of tasks, which are linked to a set of key deliverables. A set of key deliverables must be met to meet a milestone.

Is there a way to show the progress towards a milestone as and when key deliverables are met ? 

One way, I could think was to have a a summary task of key deliverables, and mark this summary task as milestones, but there are few issues 

1. Having a milestone with non-zero duration is counter intuitive 

2. If there are multiple milestones, the summary task method will require nesting of milestones & deliverables. 

Is there an easier way, where deliverables are linked to the milestone to which they align to and as these deliverables are met, the milestone to which they are linked shows a progress % . Is there a way to represent this abstraction visually say in the gantt chart or timeline view - Milestones are shown as diamond in these views, so progress made to achieve the milestone can't be shown by default as such. 

Any thoughts ?? 

[#2]

NKumar2010 --

The simplest solution would be to display the % Complete value to the right of the summary task indicator in the Gantt Chart view. To do this, apply the Gantt Chart view and then double-click anywhere in the white part of the Gantt Chart screen on the right side of the view. In the Bar Styles dialog, select the line item named Summary. At the bottom of the dialog, click the Text tab. Click the Right pick list button and select the % Complete item on the list. Click the OK button.

Just a thought. Hope this helps.

[#3]

Hi Dale,
So you are are also suggesting I keep milestone task as a summary task, with key deliverables as it's summary task . This means the summary task shows it's progress, which essentially is a progress to achieve the milestone.

[#4]

NKumar2010 --

No. My solution assumes that you have summary tasks that represent major sections of your project and that you have a milestone task as the last task at the end of each section. DO NOT change the summary task into a Milestone task. Then implement my solution and see if it works. Hope this helps.

[#5]

@NKumar2010 

Refer to the screenshot below for what your project should look like. See how this project has summary tasks and a milestone for each summary task? And notice the % Complete value to the right of each summary task's Gantt bar? That is the approach I am recommending for you.  Hope this helps.