Completion of deliverables

Acceptance or Completion Criteria : These are the conditions that must be met before a deliverable is accepted by the customer or considered complete. This is usually defined in the scope statement.

Technical Performance Measures : These are technical specifications (e.g., dimensions, weight, throughput) that may be documented in a separate spec document or added to the WBS.

Definition of Done (DoD) : Used mostly in agile or adaptive projects (like software), it’s a checklist of all required conditions. Once all are met, the deliverable is ready for customer use.

Moving target of completion

The definition of “done” in a project is not fixed it keeps changing over time as new features or expectations are added.

Project teams compare the planned progress with the actual progress. When the project gets delayed or stretched, the final goal may shift too. This is called “done drift” when the finish line keeps moving further as new tasks or changes are introduced.