Top 10 Project Milestone Templates

Looking for some easy-to-use milestone templates?

Milestones are crucial to project management as they help you keep track of important events and reveal your current progress. Add checklists to these milestones to keep everything on track!

However, to make the best use of milestones, you need to visualize them by using a project milestone template or by plotting them a Gantt chart.

In this article, we’ll briefly cover what milestones are and how to create a milestone chart. We’ll also reveal our curated list of top 10 milestone templates.mi

Finally, we’ll let you in on a secret to map your milestones perfectly!

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Let’s get started!

What Is a Project Milestone?

Project milestones are key achievements along your project timeline.

They are checkpoints that signify the completion of key events or tasks.

For example, releasing the first version of a video game is a milestone for the game development team.

What’s the difference between timeline and milestone?

A timeline is a series of project-related events sorted in chronological order.

The project timeline contains all the events related to the project, both big and small.

Project Milestones are certain points on the timeline, which represent only crucial events like the beginning of a new project phase, critical tasks, and important meetings with the stakeholders.

Why are project milestones important?

Milestones are important because they:

Help your project team get a clear map of the project’s main phases and dependencies
Motivate your team by giving them a sense of accomplishment
Keep your stakeholders in the loop to increases their confidence in your project

Essentially, having milestones gives your teams and stakeholders a reason to celebrate!

How to Create a Milestone Chart?

Now that we know why milestones are important, we need to learn how to create a project milestone chart.

Here are two things you need to do to create a milestone chart:

Choose your milestones
Use project milestone templates

Now let’s take a closer look at these steps:

Step 1: Choose Your Milestones

First things first, you need to choose your milestones before making a chart and plotting them.

Otherwise, it’ll be like throwing darts blindfolded.

It’s not going to end well.

Don’t worry, all you need to do is answer a simple question:

“Does this qualify to be a project milestone?”

What are the best practices for identifying project milestones?

A milestone is always an important event.

Milestone Examples

Here are some examples of milestones for almost any project type:

The end date or start date of a new project phase like ‘testing phase’ or ‘coding phase’
Key deliverables of the project like; the first working software
Major events like ‘project sponsor sanction’, ‘project proposal’, or ‘design approval’

Step 2: Use project milestone templates

Now, it’s time to implement those milestones.

How can you do that?

Just download a new milestone template and open it in PowerPoint, Excel, or as a Google sheet.

Then, just add your data, and you’re done.

Why Do You Need A Milestone Template?

Milestone templates are useful because they:

Help you and your project team clearly visualize the milestones
Save you time and work since you don’t have to start from scratch
Act as a guide for those who are new to project management

10 Milestone Templates & Examples

There are a ton of milestone templates out there, so how do you choose?

Don’t worry; we’ve done the work for you!

Here’s our curated list of the best new milestone templates out there:

1. ClickUp Roadmap with Timeline Template

Use the ClickUp Roadmap & Timeline Template to keep your team aligned on milestones and help inform the public visually with this roadmap template that includes a timeline.

Download this ClickUp Roadmap with Timeline Template.

2. ClickUp Simple Gantt Template with Milestones

This ClickUp Simple Gantt chart Template makes it easy to map out your project’s timeline. Using this template you can add Milestones to mark big key breakthroughs when completing a group of tasks!

Download this ClickUp Simple Gantt Chart Template.

3. PowerPoint Project Timeline Template with Milestones

This is a simple and eye-catching PowerPoint milestone chart template from Office Timeline.

Download this project timeline template.

4. Microsoft Word Stakeholder Map Milestone List Template

This one is a minimalist milestone list, that’s available as an Excel/Word Template. You get a table to list out your milestones along with their description, type, and date.

Download this project milestone template.

5. Excel Gantt chart with Timeline and Milestones

This Excel Gantt chart template allows you to map out the entire project timeline easily. It not only lets you add key milestones, but also task dependencies.

As an added bonus, this timeline format is visually appealing – unlike most other templates.

Gantt chart with timeline and milestones

Download this timeline chart template.

6. Excel Gantt chart with Milestones for Agile projects

This is an Excel Gantt chart template with milestones specifically designed for Agile teams.

Download this Agile project milestone template.

7. PowerPoint Milestone Roadmap PowerPoint Timeline Template

This ten-slide long, visually pleasing PowerPoint timeline template offers various roadmap charts to let you view your milestones from different angles.

Download this timeline template.

8. Excel Project Timeline with Milestones

This Excel project timeline template offers a professional looking project timeline to track your project’s milestones.

Download this Excel project timeline with milestones template.

9. PowerPoint Growth Timeline Template

This simple PowerPoint growth timeline template lays out project milestones in easy-to-understand infographics and icons.

Download this PowerPoint growth template.

10. PowerPoint Milestone & History Timeline Template

Use this PowerPoint template to highlight key milestones of the history of a project.

Download this PowerPoint milestone & history timeline template.

More Template Resources:

What Are the Problems of Using Milestone Templates?

Using a project template is like hanging out with an acquaintance; it’s mostly fun and certainly better than nothing.

However, you can’t compare it to a lively night out with your best friend!

So what’s the best-friend equivalent in project management?

A powerful dedicated project management software like ClickUp.

What’s ClickUp?

ClickUp is the world’s highest-rated project management software.

But wait, templates do a good job with mapping out milestones, right?

Not really.

Templates rely on manual data entry and can be extremely limiting.

For example, individual task statuses need to be updated manually every time it changes.

Additionally, in real-life projects, milestones aren’t the only things you’ll be dealing with.

You’ll also need to do stuff like:

Improve coordination with your teams
Manage your Agile project management process
Create a work breakdown structure

Unfortunately, a simple project management template can’t handle any of these tasks.

Here are a few more issues that will arise when you use templates:

A. Team collaboration is a challenge

Hanging out with friends is the most fun when everyone is in sync: you laugh together, you go to parties together, and do many countless things together.

Similarly, in project management, team coordination is crucial if you want to supercharge your productivity. Your project team needs to easily have task-relevant discussions and share new project updates and documents together.

However, a PowerPoint and Google sheet isn’t going to help you here.

There’s no place to have engaging task-relevant discussions or share documents.

Luckily, ClickUp takes your team collaboration to a whole new level. Here’s how:

ClickUp solution: Comment sections

ClickUp Comments have a ton of useful functionalities.

Each individual task in ClickUp has a built-in comment section where your team members can:

Attach files and docs
Quote any comment
Assign or tag any other member

B. Templates aren’t flexible

Different situations call for different approaches.

You can’t have a one-size-fits-all solution.

For example:

You can’t wear your favorite pajamas everywhere, especially at a job interview.

Similarly, in project management, you need to have the flexibility to change into something that fits the occasion.

For example, you’ll probably need to view multiple projects in a Kanban-board-style when you’re using Agile. However, you’ll need a task list format for your other small projects.

With a Google sheet or PowerPoint template, however, there’s no room for any changes. You’re stuck with what you’ve got.

ClickUp solution: Multiple Views

ClickUp is built to adapt to your preferred working style. You can view your Workspace from a completely different angle with just one click.

Here’s a list of useful views you get:

List View: great for teams who prefer to view their project workspace as a GTD-style task list
Board View: visualize your tasks Kanban-style
Calendar View: plan and manage your project schedule across a calendar
Me Mode: only highlights project tasks and items assigned to you
Box View: high-level task overview to figure out who is working on what

Sorry templates, we’re way ahead of ya!

What’s the Best Way to Map Milestones?

So it’s clear that milestone templates have issues.

And it’s also clear that ClickUp can solve those issues.

So what’s the best way to map out milestones?

We think the answer’s pretty clear.

Let’s take a look at how can ClickUp help you map milestones with ease:

Step 1. Creating a detailed project structure

Before you start work on your milestones, you first need a project plan and structure.

And the best way to structure your new project is to split it into tasks and subtasks.

For example, if you are developing a video game, your project plan will look like:

Project goal: Build an action PC game
- Task A: Planning
- Task B: Designing
- Task C: Coding
- Task D: Testing
  - Subtask: Bug testing
  - Subtask: User testing

Check out these project planning tools!

All this project planning sounds like a pain to implement, though, right?

That depends…

If you’re using a project management template; keep a bottle of aspirin handy, you’re gonna need it!

If you’re using ClickUp, keep your sunglasses handy because you’ll manage operations like a boss!

ClickUp’s Tasks and Subtasks lets you easily split any long project into smaller Tasks and Subtasks. Now, instead of attempting everything at once, your team can now work on the whole project step-by-step.

The best part?

Each ClickUp Task and Subtask comes with a project status bar to track your project 24/7.

You can also add Checklists to these project tasks for advanced task management. These are simple to-do-lists to map out small things like quality-check items. This way, by crossing them off as they progress, your team can take care of the tiniest details.

Step 2. Assigning the milestones in an organized way

Your project has a structure, great.

Now it’s time to prioritize and organize your project tasks according to their project phase.

Here’s what you have to do before adding the milestones:

Identify the critical tasks and the deliverables
Determine the specific tasks which begin or end a project phase
Identify the tasks (like deciding the project budget) which require stakeholder approval

Check out these budget proposal templates!

Simply add the specific milestones to these tasks.

And, what’s the most organized and convenient way to do it?

Spoiler: It’s not a timeline template.

(Drumroll please)

It’s ClickUp’s Milestones.

ClickUp lets you add a milestone to any task with just a couple of clicks.

To make things even easier, ClickUp lets you quickly identify the new milestone tasks by keeping the task names bold and adding a diamond icon beside them in the Task List view or Calendar view.

Step 3. Use a Gantt chart to map things out

Now for the most fun part; it’s time to visualize your tasks.

How do you do it?

By using a Gantt chart.

A Gantt chart is a visual map that charts all the tasks scheduled over the entire project timeline.

Gantt charts visualize a range of project details like:

Tasks and their assignees
The dependencies of the tasks
The overall project progress

Sure, Gantt charts are pretty cool.

But it gets even better with milestones.

When you add the key milestones to your Gantt charts, you’ll get a clear view of all the important dates, events, deliverables, and deadlines.

And for the clearest view of things, try ClickUp’s Gantt chart view.

ClickUp’s Gantt charts aren’t just visually appealing; they’re also powerful and super fun to use.

See for yourself:

Here are some cool things they can do:

Automatically re-adjusts task dependencies after changing the project schedule
Automatically calculate project completion percentage
Can determine your critical path when you’re facing a tight project schedule

The best part?

For added visibility, your milestones are automatically plotted as yellow diamond icons in your Gantt chart.

Want to know more about Gantt charts? Read our detailed Gantt Chart guide here.

But wait, that’s not all.

This was just the welcome drink.

We have a keg full of features waiting for you:

Dependencies: helps you plan and attempt your tasks in the right order
Advanced reporting: get detailed reports on project progress with powerful analytical charts like Velocity Charts, Burndown Charts, Burnup Charts, and Cumulative Flow Charts
Project Management Automation: automate repetitive and complex project processes within ClickUp
Native Time Tracking: track the hours your remote team spends on tasks within ClickUp
Goals: break down your entire project goal into smaller, measurable Targets

Conclusion

Sure, milestone templates can help you at times…

However, you also need to remember that:

They’re inconvenient and inefficient for mapping milestones
They can only handle one small aspect of project management
You’d need to switch between dozens of templates for your various project needs

On the other hand, project management tools, like ClickUp, help you handle all your work, not just mapping key milestones. From creating a project plan to plotting milestones to tracking your progress, ClickUp has got you covered.

So why settle for a project template and deal with all those drawbacks, when you can get an all-in-one solution for FREE?!

Sign Up with ClickUp, and take the first step towards achieving all your project milestone goals today. This way, the next time you finish the first version of your project, approve your budget or hit any other project milestone, you’ll be able to easily track it in action!

Everything you need to stay organized and get work done.

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