How to Add Milestones to a Rock in Ninety

Milestones are checkpoints that help your team make steady progress toward a Rock (your 90-day priorities in the Entrepreneurial Operating System®, or EOS®). Instead of treating a Rock as one big deliverable due at the end of the quarter, milestones let you break it into specific tasks with individual due dates and owners. Any team member on a paid plan can add and manage milestones on Rocks for the teams they're assigned to. Enabling or disabling milestones company-wide requires Owner, Admin, or Coach permissions.

Enable milestones for your company

Milestones are an optional feature that an Owner, Admin, or Coach must turn on before your team can use them.

1. Click your profile icon and select Company Settings.
2. From the Configuration page, scroll down to the Rocks section.
3. Click the Show Milestones on Rocks toggle to enable it.

Once enabled, milestones appear on every Rock across your organization.

Add a milestone to a Rock

There are two ways to add a milestone. Use whichever fits your workflow.

Option 1: Inline from the Rocks list

To add a milestone to a Rock from a team member's Rocks card: 

1. Click Rocks in the left navigation.
2. Find the Rock you want to update and click the caret (›) on its row to expand it.
3. Click + Add Milestone below any existing milestones.
4. Enter a title and set a due date.
5. Click Add or the checkmark to save.

Option 2: From the Edit Rock panel

To add a milestone from a Rocks details panel:

1. Click Rocks in the left navigation.
2. Click anywhere on the Rock's row to open the Edit Rock panel.
3. Scroll to the Milestones section and click + Add Milestone.
4. Enter a title and set a due date.
5. Click Add or the checkmark to save.

After saving, click any milestone to edit its title, due date, description, owner, attachments, or comments. Milestones can be assigned to any licensed team member in your organization.

Track milestone progress

Once milestones are added to a Rock, a progress bar appears on the Rock's row in the Rocks list. The bar shows how many milestones are complete out of the total — for example, "2/3" means two of three milestones are done.

For a full overview of columns and filters on the Rocks list, see Navigating the Rocks Page.

Automatically create To-Dos for incomplete milestones

Ninety can automatically create a To-Do for any milestone that isn't complete seven days before its due date. This is a separate, optional company-wide setting. To enable it:

1. Click your profile icon and select Company Settings.
2. From the Configuration page, scroll down to the Rocks section.
3. Click the Automatically create To-Dos for Milestones not completed 7 days before due date toggle to enable it.

This process runs once per day at 06:00 UTC and reflects the toggle's state at that moment. Once a To-Do is created from a milestone:

• The To-Do appears in the team's To-Dos list, reminding the assigned team member of the upcoming task.
• The To-Do's due date and description can be updated independently.
• Marking the To-Do as complete also marks the corresponding milestone as complete.

Enabling or disabling this setting requires Owner, Admin, or Coach permissions.

Are milestones “EOS Pure”

No, milestones are not “EOS Pure.” In EOS, a Rock is:

• A 90-day priority
• Specific and measurable
• Owned by one person
• Binary at the end of the quarter: done or not done

The purpose of Rocks is to create clarity, focus, and accountability on what is most important right now within the Traction Component®.

However, we at Ninety, and thousands of companies running on EOS choose to break their Rocks down into milestones to benefit from having multiple team members responsible for a portion of the Rock, track progress throughout the quarter, and make it easier to determine the Rock's status.

Troubleshooting

I don't see milestones on my Rocks. Milestones may be disabled for your company. An Owner, Admin, or Coach can enable them in Company Settings > Configuration > Rocks by turning on the Show Milestones on Rocks toggle.

The milestone progress bar isn't showing. The progress bar only appears when a Rock has at least one milestone added. If milestones are enabled but the column is empty, open the Rock and add a milestone.

My milestone didn't generate a To-Do. The automatic To-Do setting may be disabled. Check Company Settings > Configuration > Rocks and confirm the Automatically create To-Dos for Milestones not completed 7 days before due date toggle is on. Also note that the process runs once daily at 06:00 UTC — a milestone added or updated after that window won't generate a To-Do until the next run. Milestones already marked complete before the daily run are not converted.

I can't find the milestone I added. If the progress bar is visible on the Rock's row but no milestones appear when you expand it, try refreshing the page. If milestones still don't appear, contact support.