Milestones set to capture Client Responsabilities

[m20keeper]

In our company it is standard to set a milestone with a lag to account for
client responsabilities. Why is this or why would this not be a good idea? I
am looking to explain and I believe it has to do with the earned value but I
have been unable to put my finger on it. Example: Client has 2 days to
approve a document, I would set a task as a milestone and link it to the
submit to client task with a 2 day lag time.

 

[Rod Gill]

This is a good idea as it captures an important piece of communication: what
the client has to do and when for the project to succeed. I create a Summary
task at the top of the schedule called Inputs (or whatever seems most
appropriate for the project) that has all decisions and all inputs to the
schedule. A sub-summary task could be Customer sign-offs where your Customer
approval milestones go. Make sure the client is aware of when they are
likely to need to approve any documentation and the consequences of any
delays (especially for fixed cost and time contracts). Other inputs are
availability of key resources, decisions: any event that triggers a task in
your schedule.

All inputs are likely to have constrained dates and / or deadline dates when
they are required by, but ideally no other tasks in your schedule would have
a constraining date.

I don't think this has anything to do with earned value.

 

[Steve House [Project MVP]]

I'll second Rod - this is exactly the way I'd do it. Sometimes people
represent that 2 day waiting time as a task but I don't like that idea.
"Waiting" is by definition not doing anything, being on "hold," while a task
ALWAYS represents activity performed by a resource. Waiting for the reply
is non-activity <grin>.