Lesson 3: Fundamental Project Concepts: Part 2
Deliverables
Related to the concept of a milestone, and easily one of the most frequently heard words in the project universe, is deliverable.
Deliverable is one of those really, really great words. You can use it all around your life, at the grocery store, at the beach, wherever you take your bad projectized self. The PMBOK introduces this concept very nicely:
A deliverable is a tangible, verifiable work product such as a feasability study, a detail design, or a working prototype.
A deliverable thus is something tangible, measurable, and lives outside of the head of the Project Manager in the world of physical things. One of the easiest ways to grasp the essense of deliverable is to note the word deliver, which implies that something is produced and given to someone else (like delivering a pizza).
Deliverables are therefore the little pizzas that your project gives to you, and the rest of your team.
So what's the big difference between a milestone and a deliverable? HUH?
Well, a milestone has a symbolic purpose and is not a physical creation (and therefore can represent things that are not tangible, such as hitting the 3 month mark of the project).
A deliverable, on the other hand, defines the class of tangible(i.e. physical) products that the project produces on its path towards achieving its ultimate goal. As a result, a project will have significantly fewer milestones than deliverables.
You might be wondering if a milestone can be a deliverable? Absolutely.
For example, let's say that one of your agreed-upon and accepted milestones is 3 months down the road, and represents the recruiting of a Project Management Assistant (remember that milestones are not activities in themselves, but simply represent special activities in the project). This hiring of a Project Assistant is also a deliverable: at the 3 month mark, the project activities have led to the production of a tangible product: the Project Management Assistant.
This means that many of your milestones will in fact be deliverables, but many of your deliverables will not be milestones. Milestones are used to flag key events. Each time your project produces a little pizza is not a key event. Some of the pizzas will be really important, and those will be a milestone. But don't make every deliverable a milestone, or your team will think you've gone mad and with good reason.
References used in this section(these books are available for order via the Resources link above):
A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, by the Project Management Institute. Chapter 2.
