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Project Management Systems Engineering Project: o o o o o

A work breakdown structure (WBS) is a hierarchical decomposition of a project into smaller components to define, organize, and manage the total scope of work. It breaks down the project into deliverables, phases, and work packages to provide a framework for planning, estimating costs, tracking schedule and budgets, and reporting progress. The WBS concept originated with the Program Evaluation and Review Technique used for defense projects in the 1950s and 1960s. It provides a standardized approach through templates and guidelines to structure projects for consistency across complex defense systems and programs.

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53 views4 pages

Project Management Systems Engineering Project: o o o o o

A work breakdown structure (WBS) is a hierarchical decomposition of a project into smaller components to define, organize, and manage the total scope of work. It breaks down the project into deliverables, phases, and work packages to provide a framework for planning, estimating costs, tracking schedule and budgets, and reporting progress. The WBS concept originated with the Program Evaluation and Review Technique used for defense projects in the 1950s and 1960s. It provides a standardized approach through templates and guidelines to structure projects for consistency across complex defense systems and programs.

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karanchouhan
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© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
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A work breakdown structure (WBS), in project management and systems engineering, is a deliverable oriented decomposition of a project into smaller

components. It defines and groups aproject's discrete work elements in a way that helps organize and define the total work scope of the project.[1] A work breakdown structure element may be a product, data, a service, or any combination. A WBS also provides the necessary framework for detailed cost estimating and control along with providing guidance for schedule development and control.[1]
Contents
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1 Overview 2 History 3 Design principles


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3.1 100% rule

3.1.1 Mutually exclusive elements

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3.2 Plan outcomes, not actions 3.3 Level of detail 3.4 Coding scheme 3.5 Terminal element

4 Example 5 Misconceptions 6 See also 7 References 8 Further reading 9 External links

[edit]Overview WBS is a hierarchical decomposition of the project into phases, deliverables and work packages. It is a tree structure, which shows a subdivision of effort required to achieve an objective; for example a program, project, and contract.[2] In a project or contract, the WBS is developed by starting with the end objective and successively subdividing it into manageable components in terms of size, duration, and responsibility (e.g., systems, subsystems, components, tasks, subtasks, and work packages) which include all steps necessary to achieve the objective.

Example of work breakdown structure applied in a NASA reporting structure.[2]

The work breakdown structure provides a common framework for the natural development of the overall planning and control of a contract and is the basis for dividing work into definable increments from which the statement of work can be developed and technical, schedule, cost, and labor hour reporting can be established.[2] A work breakdown structure permits summing of subordinate costs for tasks, materials, etc., into their successively higher level parent tasks, materials, etc. For each element of the work breakdown structure, a description of the task to be performed is generated.[3] This technique (sometimes called a system breakdown structure [4]) is used to define and organize the total scope of a project. The WBS is organised around the primary products of the project (or planned outcomes) instead of the work needed to produce the products (planned actions). Since the planned outcomes are the desired ends of the project, they form a relatively stable set of categories in which the costs of the planned actions needed to achieve them can be collected. A well-designed WBS makes it easy to assign each project activity to one and only one terminal element of the WBS. In addition to its function in cost accounting, the WBS also helps map requirements from one level of system specification to another, for example a requirements cross reference matrix mapping functional requirements to high level or low level design documents.

ntroduction
Dividing complex projects to simpler and manageable tasks is the process identified as Work Breakdown Structure (WBS).

Usually, the project managers use this method for simplifying the project execution. In WBS, much larger tasks are broken-down to manageable chunks of work. These chunks can be easily supervised and estimated. WBS is not restricted to a specific field when it comes to application. This methodology can be used for any type of project management. Following are a few reasons for creating a WBS in a project.

Accurate and readable project organization. Accurate assignment of responsibilities to the project team. Indicates the project milestones and 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.

[edit]History The concept of work breakdown structure developed with the Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) in the United States Department of Defense (DoD). PERT was introduced by the U.S. Navy in 1957 to support the development of its Polaris missile program.[5] While the term "work breakdown structure" was not used, this first implementation of PERT did organize the tasks into product-oriented categories.[6] By June 1962, DoD, NASA and the aerospace industry published a document for the PERT/COST system which described the WBS approach.[7] This guide was endorsed by the Secretary of Defense for adoption by all services.[8] In 1968, the DoD issued "Work Breakdown Structures for Defense Materiel Items" (MIL-STD881), a military standard requiring the use of work breakdown structures across the DoD.[9] This standard established top-level templates for common defense materiel items along with associated descriptions (WBS dictionary) for their elements. The document has been revised several times, most recently in 2011. The current version of this document can be found in "Work Breakdown Structures for Defense Materiel Items" (MIL-STD-881C).[10] It includes standards for preparing work breakdown structures, templates for the top three levels of typical systems, and a set of "common elements" that are applicable to all major systems and subsystems.

Example from MIL-HDBK-881, which illustrates the first three levels of a typical aircraft system.[11]

Defense Materiel Item categories from MIL-STD-881C:

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