Do you set Milestones?

Just finished an article on my blog about planning with time estimates and setting Milestones so that you can deliver a project on time. I hope that you find it useful, let me know your feelings on the matter:

http://greyaliengames.com/blog/do-you-set-milestones/

Of course if you aren't working to a date, setting Milestones is still a great motivational tool.

P.S. If your get a blank screen in IE 7 scroll down a bit. It's a bug with that browser that I havn't set a date to fix it by ;-)

Nope i don't but when i get seriuos i do start getting a blank paper and draw somekind of sheet with the days/weeks i have left to finish something then i colour it and fill out some stuff which i could do then in this time plan. After i made this i feel much better.

I also leave a lot of spaces due to that most of the time always something happens that comes in between and that you don't do what you wrote into it but as i said before i feel much better after doing so... ;O)

you feel better but does it work ;-)

http://ganttproject.biz/

Yeah it works as i feel better, have an idea where i am or i should be so that i know if i have to work overnight or can play a game in between... ;O)

It's important to me to use crayons (the wooden ones) and paper with squares on it. I do this since i learnt for my diploma.

I often set milestones for the art in my games, but usually find that I am too eager initially to get the game done and do all the graphics in a rushed manner meaning they look terrible but 'hey I'm ahead of schedule' only to find that I can't be bothered once I've created all the placeholder art to actually replace it with decent stuff....this is more the case with 3d stuff than 2d stuff though...

It's certainly a good idea, but it would require me to have some kind of "plan" in the first place... :-/

Make an optimistic rough estimate and multiply by PI. It sounds silly, but I've been doing professionally for over 10 years and it actually works!

//PetBom

haha that's great!

I plan whatever on paper, break it down, then incorporate it into a schedule.

I dont set the schedule in stone (because you cannot, obviously), but it does give me something to aim for!

Dabz

I am actually working on milestones today. I think it is important.

I normally don't set milestones, but it can be good to have them.

With my new project I will be going for the full design doc, flow charts projections and milestones, as I really want to polish it up big time. if it will work or not is another matter I am one of those free spirit types and tend to float around doing more than one project at the same time, so its going to be hard for me to force myself to stick to a timeline.

Milestones are good, however too many can be detrimental. I suppose it comes down to setting realistic time scales for stuff.