Work Breakdown Structures (WBS)
The Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is essential for getting a project off the ground. Creating a WBS, however, can be a daunting task. This beginner-friendly guide will help you understand the work breakdown structure and create one on your own.
Understand the Work Breakdown Structure
The work breakdown structure can be confusing, especially for new project managers. Despite its name, it doesn’t actually involve breaking down work; it involves breaking down deliverables.
This, among others, is one of several reasons why you need a thorough understanding of the work breakdown structure before you can create your own.
What is a Work Breakdown Structure?
As with most things in project management, let’s start by looking at what PMBOK has to say about the work breakdown structure.
“A deliverable-oriented hierarchical decomposition of the work to be executed by the project team to accomplish the project objectives and create the required deliverables”
characteristics of the Work Breakdown Structure
Not every breakdown of project deliverables can be classified as a WBS. For it to be called a work breakdown structure, it must have certain characteristics:
Hierarchy: The WBS is hierarchical in nature. Each “child” level exists in a strict hierarchical relationship with the parent level. The sum of all the child elements should give you the parent element.
100% rule: Every level of decomposition must make up 100% of the parent level. It should also have at least two child elements.
Mutually exclusive: All elements at a particular level in a WBS must be mutually exclusive. There must be no overlap in either their deliverables or their work. This is meant to reduce miscommunication and duplicate work.
Outcome-focused: The WBS must focus on the result of work, i.e. deliverables, rather than the activities necessary to get there. Every element should be described via nouns, not verbs. This is a big source of confusion for beginners to WBS.
Benefits of a Work Breakdown Structure
The WBS is a laser-focused breakdown of all the key deliverables needed to make the project successful. Creating one offers several advantages, such as:
Project schedule: The WBS is the foundation of the project schedule and budget. Once you know all the deliverables required to complete the project, as well as their hierarchical relationships, it will be much easier to assign resources and set deadlines.
Accountability: Since all elements in a WBS are mutually exclusive, it helps create accountability. A team assigned to a single work package is wholly accountable for its completion. This reduces overlaps in responsibility.
Commitment:The WBS gives teams a very high-level overview of their responsibilities. Since each team is responsible for a specific component at a time, it helps make them more committed to completing their assigned tasks.
Reduces ambiguities: The process of developing the WBS involves the project manager, project team, and all relevant stakeholders. This encourages dialog and helps everyone involved flesh out their responsibilities. Thus, everyone has less ambiguity and a better idea of what they’re supposed to do.
