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77 Target and Milestones In projects, targets are what projects aim to achieve at certain milestones. A milestone is a significant event in a project, such as a mid-term review on which critical dependent achievements are expected. Milestones are critical because their achievements determine the progression of a project, yet they are dependent on completion of activities appropriate to a milestone. Milestones are often outside control of users and as such they should be few. For example produce a training manual because it is critical for training trainees but dependent on a hiring a consultant developing a training manual. Therefore, it is important that milestones are SMART:  Specific - milestones should be specific and written in clear, concise, and understandable terms.  Measurable - milestones should have realistic and justifiable success criteria which can be measured. Therefore, milestones should have target value range and acceptable (cut-off) values to determine their usefulness.  Achievable - milestones must be ambitious but realistic (do not be too ambitious!)  Relevant - since milestones are critical achievements they must focus on progressing the project along an appropriate development path.  Timely (deadlines not durations) - milestones should have a realistic timeframe with an end date assigned to them. Milestones can be measured or accessed if a project is to know whether it is progressing on the appropriate development path. Table 9 below shows how to measure milestones Table 9: Identifying and Measuring Milestones Milestone Expected achievement date(s) What is measured How it is measured Results (acceptable/unacc eptable) Acceptable variance Action required Training manual produced 10 th – 20 th June Quality of the manual Assessing content and scope in line with international standards Acceptable 10% Procced to train 2000 community health workers (CHW) employed August - October # of CHW employed Counting those employed as CHW in targeted areas Acceptable 15% Access readiness to be employed as CHW for next cohort Milestones are used as mock evaluations or litmus paper on readiness to achieve the project or programme targets. A project should have baseline data to enable it plan for its targets. In-between this