glossary — plain english
Deliverable
The concrete thing a task or project hands over when it's done — a launched site, a signed-off design, a working feature. A result, not an effort.
Tasks describe work; deliverables describe what the work leaves behind. "Design the homepage" is a task. "Approved homepage design" is its deliverable. The distinction sounds pedantic until a status meeting, where "we worked on design all week" and "the homepage design is approved" are very different sentences.
Deliverables are how you make "done" checkable. A task with no deliverable can be 90% finished forever. A task defined by its deliverable is either done or it isn't — the file exists, the feature ships, the document is signed. Keep them nouns: things you could point at.
On a timeline, deliverables usually surface as milestones — the diamond marks the moment the thing is handed over. If your chart has milestones nobody could attach an object to, they're probably just hopes with dates on them.
See it on a real chart
Describe your project in plain English and ganttchart.ai turns it into a shareable Gantt chart in seconds — every term on this page included. Or read the method first: the plain-English planning guide.