Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

SYNOPSIS

Organize your team's tasks and deliverables with a clear Work Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). As one of the most important project management tools, WBS helps to engineer and visualize the Who's and the What's with easy-to-follow tiers and hierarchies. WBS help project managers identify key activities and resources to make successful deliverables.

PREVIEW

TOOL HIGHLIGHTS

OUTCOME

The first step in the development of a project schedule defines the work to be completed and in what order to achieve the goals of the project. A good Work Breakdown Structure can also work the other way around. It allows a project manager to work backward and identify the exact steps and components needed if they already have a goal for final deliverables.

A well-constructed WBS can help the entire project management process, extending to project-related decisions like cost-benefit analysis, how to allocate resources, and project risk assessment.

Types of WBS

There are two types of WBS diagrams: Phase-based and deliverable-based. The typical Work Breakdown Structure chart is phase-based and resembles a tree diagram. The top-level is the project title, final deliverable, or even a new feature. The second level is the controls account. The next row is the work packages section, where the groups of tasks that lead to your controls account as listed. Finally, there's the key activities section where tasks needed to complete the work package are listed and grouped (Slide 3-4)

Alternate layout

A table layout of WBS allows room for more detailed activities that correspond to each phase. This table WBS includes quantitative measurables like the duration of time and resources needed to complete each task. This can easily be substituted for qualitative inputs if more description is needed. (Slide 5)

For even finer detail, a more descriptive WBS task table is useful. Break down work by task category, descriptions, deliverables, deadline, and team member responsible for each task. (Slide 6) 

On the other hand, a more simplified WBS approach can be useful for a top-level overview. This helps to align bulleted lists of tasks across main phases with room to assign the task and team member responsible (Slide 7) 

In this combination of table and tree diagram WBS, fill in the project basics at the top, then provide a more top-level view of the controls account, work packages, and corresponding activities. (Slide 8)

In this alternative view of a left-to-right Work Breakdown chart, we list each tier of WBS at the bottom. This means that the big picture falls on the left, with more finetuned details to follow as we move to the right. (Slide 15)

Progress tracker

Since WBS diagrams can be dense and hard to fit too much information, having a way to highlight particular tasks can be helpful. Use a mini progress tracker to elaborate on project status and details. Use progress bars to highlight steps towards completion on specific features (Slide 10). Alternatively, a bar graph can also be used to showcase more data-driven details. (Slide 11)

Deliverable-based WBS

A deliverable-based WBS is useful to define what resources each phase needs to be accomplished. Unlike the typical phase-based diagram we've seen so far, this deliverable-based WBS has a left-to-right visualization. In this example, the deliverable-based WBS helps us determine the hours and budget for each task (Slide 14)

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