Work Breakdown Structure: Break Your Project into Manageable Units of Work
The work breakdown structure (WBS) is a tool for breaking down a project into its component parts, the foundation of project management, and one of the most important techniques of PM. The WBS can take either a graphical or outline form, though the outline is more scalable for large projects. The WBS helps to:
- Provide a detailed illustration of project scope
- Monitor progress
- Create accurate cost and schedule estimates
- Build project teams
The WBS takes the deliverables listed in the Statement of Work as the high level task which are then broken down into levels of summary tasks culminating in work packages that are assigned time and cost estimates. Work packages should include the Project Management activities under a Project Management summary task, and all work packages should sum to the total cost and time estimate for the full project. Ideally, work packages should be no smaller than 8 hours or longer than 80 hours, or longer than the time between two status points. This will help make the work packages easier to manage. Work packages should also be parsed and named according to activities that produce a product.
The WBS can be the most detailed and time consuming portion of project planning, however, done correctly it can save immense time and money be averting changes to scope later in the project.
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