Workbreakdown Structure

Download as ppsx, pdf, or txt
Download as ppsx, pdf, or txt
You are on page 1of 16

WORKBREAKDOWN STRUCTURE

PMI DEFINITION

“A deliverable-oriented hierarchical decomposition of the work to be


executed by the project team to accomplish the project objectives and
create the required deliverables. It organizes and defines the total
scope of the project. Each descending level represents an increasingly
detailed definition of the project work. The WBS is decomposed into
work packages. The deliverable orientation of the hierarchy includes
both internal and external deliverables.”
MEANING

• Dividing complex projects to simpler and manageable tasks


• Usually, the project managers use the method for simplifying the project
execution.
• In WBS, much larger tasks broken down to manageable chunks of work.
• The process of breaking down the scope into a WBS continue until the entire
project scope decomposed in adequate details matching the level of control that
the project team wants to exercise.
• The chunks easily supervised and estimated.
IMPORTANT TERMS

• Work Package: The work defined at the lowest level of the work
breakdown structure for which cost and duration can be estimated
and managed.
• Deliverable: A WBS is deliverable oriented. A deliverable is an
outcome or a result of something. A deliverable provides some
value to the project stakeholders.
• Activity: A distinct, scheduled portion of work performed during
the course of a project.
FEW POINTS TO KEEP IN MIND

• WBS foundation for defining the project activities needed to build the
deliverables.
• WBS not the Project Schedule
• WBS does not contain activities, tasks or milestones to be achieved and it
doesn't contain any timing dependencies for performing activities.
• This important information part of the Project Schedule and the Project
Schedule based on the WBS
TOP EYE VIEW
• The upper levels of the WBS : reflect the major deliverable work areas of the project,
decomposed into logical groupings of work.
• The content of the upper levels may vary, depending on the type of project and industry
involved.
• The lower WBS elements : provide appropriate detail and focus for support of project
management processes such as schedule development, cost estimating, resource allocation, and
risk assessment.
• The lowest-level WBS components called as work packages and contain the definitions of work
to be performed and tracked.
• These can be later used as input to the scheduling process to support the elaboration of tasks,
activities, resources, and milestones which can be cost estimated, monitored, and controlled.
A SIMPLE ILLUSTRATION
Wedding Planning
One of the work packages identified : catering management
Within that work package, activities identified:
• interview caterers
• execute contract
• determine final headcount
• issue payment
EXAMPLE
PURPOSE

• Accurate and readable project organization.


• Accurate assignment of responsibilities to the project team.
• Indicates the control points.
• Helps to estimate the cost, time and risk.
• Illustrate the project scope, so the stakeholders can have a better
understanding of the same.
GUIDELINES TO CONSTRUCT WBS
• Use nouns, not verbs, to keep the focus on deliverables versus activities to create the
deliverables
• Use a hierarchy structure to illustrate the relationship of deliverable for the scope of the project
• Build the WBS collaboratively with the people who will ultimately produce the project
deliverables
• Ensure each WBS leg contains deliverables that are unique from deliverables in another leg –
we don't want to repeat the same deliverable in each column
• Never make assumptions that stakeholders will naturally know that a deliverable element is
part of the project even if it is not included in the WBS.
• Follow the 100% rule when drilling down through the levels of the WBS. The 100% rule states
that every level of decomposition in the WBS must contain all of the deliverable elements,
which represent 100% of its parent deliverable.
CONSTRUCTION OF A WBS

• Identifying the main deliverables of a project .Usually done by the


project managers and the subject matter experts (SMEs).
• Once this step completed, the subject matter experts start breaking
down the high-level tasks into smaller chunks of work.
RULES TO CREATE WBS

• The 100% Rule: The WBS should add up to 100 percent.


• Mutually Exclusive: All elements in a work breakdown structure are mutually exclusive. The mutually exclusive rule spins off
from the 100% rule. As the project manager drafts out their WBS, they should be on top of all subtasks, deliverables or tasks so as
not to repeat any of them. If a deliverable is listed twice on a WBS, then the WBS would violate the 100% rule, and those
deliverables may unfortunately overlap, unnecessarily be duplicated or suffer from miscommunication. This mutually exclusive
rule results in accountability from within the team.
• Focus on Outcomes: Outcomes and deliverables are the elements that make up a WBS.
• The 8/80 Rule: Work packages within a WBS commonly take a minimum of eight hours of effort and should not exceed 80 hours
of effort. That is the 8/80 rule. (To put it even more simply: One work package should take between one and 10 days of full-time
work to complete.) The 8/80 rule is crucial in determining the appropriate levels of detail that will make up both your project
scope and WBS.
Rule of thumb: If a proposed work package will require, for example, two weeks of effort, then that work package needs to be
divvied up.
TYPES OF WBS
• Verb-oriented WBS: a task-oriented WBS defines the deliverable of project work in terms of the
actions that must be done to produce the deliverable. The first word in a given WBS element
usually is a verb, such as, design, develop, optimize, transfer, test, etc.
• Noun-oriented WBS: a deliverable-oriented WBS defines project work in terms of the
components (physical or functional) that make up the deliverable. In this case, the first word in a
given WBS element is a noun, such as, Module A, Subsystem A, Automobile Engine, Antenna,
etc. Since the nouns are usually parts of a product, this WBS type is sometimes called a “Product
Breakdown Structure (PBS). Deliverable-oriented WBS structures are the preferred type
according to PMI’s definition.
• Time-phased WBS: a “time-phased” WBS is one that is used on very long projects. It breaks the
project into major phases instead of tasks.
• Other WBS types may include organization-types, geographical-types, cost breakdown types, and
profit-center types.
• The 100% Rule. One of the most important WBS design principles is called the 100% Rule.

You might also like