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Work Breakdown Structure

Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is a process that divides complex projects into simpler, more manageable tasks. It breaks larger tasks down into smaller, clearly defined chunks of work that can be estimated, assigned responsibilities, and easily supervised. The WBS helps accurately define a project's scope, organize the work, assign responsibilities, monitor progress, and ensure all deliverables are accounted for and non-overlapping. It is typically displayed as an outline, tree diagram, or Gantt chart.

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30 views2 pages

Work Breakdown Structure

Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is a process that divides complex projects into simpler, more manageable tasks. It breaks larger tasks down into smaller, clearly defined chunks of work that can be estimated, assigned responsibilities, and easily supervised. The WBS helps accurately define a project's scope, organize the work, assign responsibilities, monitor progress, and ensure all deliverables are accounted for and non-overlapping. It is typically displayed as an outline, tree diagram, or Gantt chart.

Uploaded by

Janet Sweety
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Work Breakdown Structure

Introduction:
 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.
Definition:
A work breakdown structure (WBS) is a visual, hierarchical and deliverable-oriented deconstruction
of a project
Example of Outlined WBS

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.

Purpose of WBS:
 There are three reasons to use a WBS in projects:
 First is that is helps more accurately and specifically define and organize the scope of the total
project.
 The second reason for using a WBS in your projects is to help with assigning responsibilities,
resource allocation, monitoring the project, and controlling the project
 Finally, it allows you double check all the deliverables' specifics with the stakeholders and make
sure there is nothing missing or overlapping.

How to build WBS:


 Begin with the Charter, focusing on Objectives and Deliverables
 Break the main product(s) down into sub-products
 Set the structure to match how you’ll manage the project
 Lowest level not too detailed, not too large
 Is there a need for Integration?
 Identify support activities
 Check for completeness - is all the effort included?
 Develop a coding structure if needed
 Assign work package managers

Goals for WBS:


 Giving visibility to important work efforts.
 Giving visibility to risky work efforts.
 Illustrate the correlation between the activities and deliverables.
 Show clear ownership by task leaders.

Types of WBS charts:


 Work Breakdown Structure List: Also known as an outline view, this is a list of work packages,
tasks and deliverables. It’s probably the simplest method to make a WBS, which is sometimes all
you need.
 Work Breakdown Structure Tree Diagram: The most commonly seen version, the tree
structure depiction of a WBS is an orga006Eizational chart that has all the same WBS elements of
the list (phases, deliverables, tasks and work packages) but represents the workflow or progress as
defined by a diagrammatic representation.
 Work Breakdown Structure Gantt Chart: A Gantt chart is both a spreadsheet and a timeline.
The Gantt chart is a WBS that can do more than a static task list or tree diagram. With a dynamic
Gantt chart, you can link dependencies, set milestones, even set a baseline. This is the most
common version in project management software.

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