Work Breakdown Structure

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Work Breakdown Structure

• What do we need to do?

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WBS An Exercise

• Suppose we are going to make an Italian dinner.
  Answer the questions
• What do you want on the table?
• What do we have to do to fix (each item)?
• That is a Work Breakdown Structure. Now, let's
  talk about the details.

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Italian Dinner What's on the Table?
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Italian DinnerWhat do we have to do to fix?
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Work Breakdown Structure

• What is it An approach to answering the question
  of what do we have to do.
• Top-down start by listing the deliverables.
  Then expand the activities needed for each one.
• Bottom-up list activities that you know are
  needed. Then group them, and name the product of
  the activities (the deliverable)

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Approaches

• Sticky notes (Easiest approach) use sticky notes
  and a large board. Let's you rearrange easily.
• Organization Chart (Powerpoint, Word, Visio)
• Outline format (Word, Excel)

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Two Approaches to Completeness

• "Classic" approach
• try to ensure that all the work of the project is
  shown in the WBS.
• I.e., all the deliverables, and all the
  activities, should be shown.
• Use experts, stakeholder meetings, and other
  methods to make sure that everything is explicit.
• Agile/Extreme methods
• Assume that we don't really know what all the
  work is.
• However, we do know what the near future work is.
  
• Do a "rolling wave" type WBS, filling in known
  deliverables and activities, and then adding more
  details later.
• Make sure you, your project team, and the
  stakeholders agree as to which approach you are
  taking.

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How Much Detail is Enough?

• Rule of Thumb 1 person, 2 weeks "chunks"
• It depends. For rough cut with experienced
  staff, you can use "bigger" chunks. For better
  estimation and inexperienced staff, use "smaller"
  chunks.
• Rule of thumb Do you know what to do? If yes,
  then you have enough detail. If not, you need to
  do more breakdown.

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Well-Defined Activities

• Status/Completion measurable
• Definite beginning and ending
• Activity has a deliverable
• Time to complete and cost easily estimated from
  prior or similar experiences.
• Activity duration is within acceptable limits
• Work assignments are independent
• (from Effective Project Management, 2nd Edition,
  by Robert K. Wysocki, Robert Beck Jr., and David
  B. Crane)

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Some Cautions

• Order is NOT important in a WBS (that comes
  later, in a network logic diagram)
• Don't forget Project Management, Communications,
  and other parts of the project that are often
  left out. Planning, meetings, etc. take time and
  resources!
• Try to keep to the same "level" of detail in
  activities.
• Although the examples don't show this, you can
  (and should, often) use subdeliverables and
  subactivities to break down the large chunks.
• Your WBS should make sense to you and your
  project team.

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WBS Deliverables and Activities
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WBS Nouns and Verbs
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WBS Outline Format

• Deliverable
• Activity
• Activity
• Deliverable
• Activity
• Activity
• Activity
• Deliverable
• Activity
• Activity

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WBS An Exercise

• As individuals, for 10 minutes
• Take your project and list the deliverables.
• List the activities for each one.
• As a group, for 20 minutes
• Construct a combined WBS using sticky notes for
  your project.
• As a group, for 5 minutes
• Collect the "lessons learned" in constructing the
  WBS