Concept: Work Breakdown Structure

1. Introduction
A key strategy of effective planning is to partition the project into manageable chunks
that can be individually planned estimated and controlled. The work breakdown structure
is a graphical tool that displays the project's statement of work making it easier to
understand and communicate. It is employed from the earliest stages of project planning.

2. Definition
The work breakdown structure (WBS) is a powerful tool for expressing the scope or
extent of a project in simple graphic terms. It represents the project in terms of the
hierarchy of deliverables and services it will produce. The project is therefore described
just as a manufacturer would document the bill of materials breakdown for a washing
machine or automobile. The WBS starts with a single box at the top which represents the
whole project. The project is then partitioned into its components with lower level boxes.

The WBS supports the principle of management by deliverables providing a map of what
is to be produced.

3. WBS Role
The role of the WBS is to:

• Partition the major project deliverables into smaller components to improve the
accuracy of cost estimates
• Provide a mechanism for collecting and organizing actual costs
• Provide a mechanism for performance measurement and control

Note that the WBS provides a simple map of what is to be produced. It does not deal with
schedules and therefore has no time dimension. It is however used as entry criteria for
schedule development.

4. WBS Structure
 A work breakdown structure defines the
hierarchy of project tasks, subtasks, and
work package
Level
Program

1 Project 1 Project 2

2 Task 1.1 Task 1.2

3 Subtask 1.1.1 Subtask 1.1.2

4 Work Package 1.1.1.1 Work Package 1.1.1.2

Figure describes a typical high level WBS structure for a small to medium sized project.
The box at the top (The Project) represents the total system and is referred to as WBS
level 1. Lower levels which describe project components in increasing detail are
numbered 2, 3, 4 and so on.

The concept of WBS level is important as it allows you to designate the level of detail at
which you report cost estimates and project cost performance figures. For example, to
effectively manage a large project a senior manager typically needs summary details of
cost variance at level 2. By contrast the team leader responsible for developing a level 2
software component needs cost performance reports at level 3.

The partitioning of the project into major components occurs at level 2. Components at
this level fall into the following classes:

Project Service. Project services that apply to the entire project and cannot be allocated
to a single deliverable item. Examples are, project management and quality management.
In the case of design services the overall architectural design of a system is classed as a
Project Service as it is used to discover what the components are. The detailed design of a
single software component however is allocated to that component.
Hardware Component. A bill of materials breakdown of computer hardware.

Software Component. A bill of materials breakdown of computer software.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. What do I do with plans? Are planning documents such as project plans classed as
WBS elements?
A. They should be if they are major deliverables and/or the organization wants to track
their preparation cost. On a small project they could be deemed part of the project
management service and not specifically called out as a deliverable.

Q. What about development activities? How can we schedule from a WBS if it

describes deliverables only? Where and when do we define the activities?
A. That is the next step. The WBS is the input into activity definition. Now that we have
defined what is to be built we can specify how it is to be built by attaching activities to
each bottom level WBS element. Most project management tools allow you build a
WBS hierarchy. The elements can be anything you want. It's up to you to make sure
that the upper level elements are deliverables and the lower level ones are the activities
that create the deliverables. If you don't plan this way you will find it impossible to
figure out how much an element cost.

Q. Tiny deliverables. What do I do with tiny deliverables like one page test cases? Does
the WBS have to document every little thing?
A. No. If it is small it can be viewed as part of a service with no particular deliverable. For
example, the test case can be part of the test service. However, if a test case was a
major document that took 2 working years to design, it would be viewed as a WBS
element.

Q. Think time with no deliverable. What do I do with time spent thinking about general
technology problems? This task almost never has a deliverable.
A. Time spent thinking can generally be classified as "technical investigation". Short term
technical investigation activities can be part of a design service. If it relates to a
specific issue such as the system architecture you should allocate it to a specific
deliverable - for example, a system architecture specification.
In general if you are doing a lot of thinking and producing no physical output you
should be concerned about your job! Try producing a technical investigation report as a
deliverable.
 Work breakdown structure

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In project management, a work breakdown structure (WBS) is an exhaustive,

hierarchical (from general to specific) tree structure of deliverables and tasks that need to
be performed to complete a project.The purpose of a WBS is to identify terminal
elements (the actual items to be done in a project). Therefore, WBS serves as the basis for
much of the project planning.

Work breakdown structure is a very common project management tool. Many United
States government statements of work require work breakdown structures.

Contents
• 1 How to build a WBS
• 2 Example of a work breakdown structure
• 3 Books

• 4 See also
[edit]

How to build a WBS

Whether the WBS should be activity-oriented or deliverable-oriented is a subject of much
discussion. There are also various approaches to building the WBS for a project (see e.g.
How to Build a Work Breakdown Structure below). Project management software, when
used properly, can be very helpful in developing a WBS, although in early stages of WBS
development, plain sticky notes are the best tool (especially in teams).

An example of a work breakdown for painting a room (activity-oriented) is, to state the
obvious:

• Prepare materials
o Buy paint
o Buy a ladder
o Buy brushes/rollers
o Buy wallpaper remover
• Prepare room
o Remove old wallpaper
o Remove detachable decorations
o Cover floor with old newspapers
o Cover electrical outlets/switches with tape
o Cover furniture with sheets
• Paint the room
• Clean up the room
o Dispose or store left over paint
o Clean brushes/rollers
o Dispose of old newspapers
o Remove covers

The size of the WBS should generally not exceed 100-200 terminal elements (if more
terminal elements seem to be required, use subprojects). The WBS should be up to 3-4
levels deep. Each level should be 5-9 elements broad. These suggestions derive from the
following facts:

1. short-term memory capacity is limited to 5-9 items.

2. having fixed time to plan a project, the more terminal elements there are, the less
time there is to pay attention to any single one of them. Consequently, the
estimates are less thought-through.
3. the more terminal elements there are the more there are potential dependencies
among them (see fact 2 above for consequences).
Example of a work breakdown structure
Books
 • Carl L. Pritchard. Nuts and Bolts Series 1: How to Build a Work Breakdown
Structure. ISBN 1890367125
• Project Management Institute. Project Management Institute Practice Standard
for Work Breakdown Structures. ISBN 1880410818
• Gregory T. Haugan. Effective Work Breakdown Structures (The Project
Management Essential Library Series). ISBN 1567261353

See also
• list of project management topics
• project planning
• critical path
• critical chain
• product breakdown structure

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