Work Breakdown Structure

Quick reference

• 00:04 Hi, I'm Ray Sheen.
• 00:05 Let's talk now about a very practical and
• 00:07 useful scope planning technique called the work breakdown structure.
• 00:12 The Project Management Body of Knowledge, the PMBOK Guide, defines work breakdown
• 00:17 structure, or WBS, as a hierarchical decomposition of the total scope of
• 00:21 work to be carried out by the project team to accomplish the project objectives and
• 00:26 create the required deliverables.
• 00:28 What a mouthful.
• 00:29 What that means is that the WBS breaks out all the project work into pieces and
• 00:34 organizes those pieces in some logical fashion.
• 00:37 A key question is how to organize the work.
• 00:41 Well, we could organize all the tasks alphabetically, but
• 00:44 that probably won't make the project easier to manage.
• 00:48 Now, a good WBS organizes the work based upon the project management
• 00:52 approach that is being used.
• 00:54 Another key question is, what is the size of a piece of work in the WBS?
• 00:58 This is a judgment call.
• 01:01 For now, let's just say that it is bite-size piece of work,
• 01:04 and I'll discuss that more in a few minutes.
• 01:06 So we will be taking all of these pieces of work and
• 01:09 organizing them in some logical manager to create a picture of everything that must
• 01:13 be done on the project.
• 01:14 It captures the full scope of the project.
• 01:17 The WBS is associated with traditional projects.
• 01:20 It's equivalent in the Agile Scrum world is the product backlog.
• 01:23 Let's discuss how to organize a WBS.
• 01:27 The WBS should be organized in a manner that is consistent with
• 01:30 the project management methodology that is being used on the project.
• 01:34 In addition, I like to focus the WBS on the areas of high risk by making those
• 01:39 categories of WBS tasks.
• 01:40 What are some of the ways to organize the WBS?
• 01:46 An obvious way that you could organize them is by project objectives found in
• 01:50 the project charter.
• 01:51 Each objective is a WBS category and
• 01:53 all tasks needed to complete that objective are in that category.
• 01:58 A very common approach is to organize the WBS by stages or phases of your project.
• 02:03 A classic example of this would be a six sigma project.
• 02:07 They would have five stages, define, measure, analyze, improve, and control.
• 02:12 Each of those would be a separate WBS category.
• 02:16 Many times on development projects, I've organized the WBS by major components
• 02:21 that were being developed such as hardware, electronics and the software.
• 02:26 Another approach is by business process such as market research,
• 02:30 design development, procurement, testing, training.
• 02:33 An approach often used when cost control is very important is
• 02:37 organizing by function or department,
• 02:40 each of which would have a project budget that they must manage.
• 02:45 On large, complex projects with activity in multiple locations,
• 02:49 I've often used the approach of organizing the WBS by geographic location.
• 02:54 So there's a category for the activity in Shanghai, another category for
• 02:58 Singapore, another category for Chicago, and a fourth category for London.
• 03:02 That makes it easy for a site manager to manage their portion of the project.
• 03:07 Why do we care about all this?
• 03:09 The WBS automatically organizes project information both during planning and
• 03:14 during execution.
• 03:16 It consolidates the information within categories and
• 03:19 allows us to focus on just one category without the need to get details from all
• 03:24 of the project categories.
• 03:25 A well constructed WBS makes project management easier and more accurate.
• 03:30 A poorly constructed WBS adds bureaucracy and creates confusion.
• 03:35 So the bottom line is organize it the way you intend to run the project.
• 03:40 Don't take some WBS you found online from a company in Seattle or Bangkok.
• 03:44 They probably manage their companies and
• 03:47 projects differently than you manage yours.
• 03:50 Recall that we also had the question of how much detail should be in the WBS.
• 03:55 I said use bite sized chunks of information.
• 03:57 Well, how big a bite should you take at one time?
• 04:00 The answer to that question depends upon how you answer several other questions.
• 04:06 Remember I said that the WBS helps us to manage risk.
• 04:09 Well, I go into more detail in the areas of high risk and
• 04:13 less detail in the areas of low risk.
• 04:15 So let's say that the detail is the level at which the core team is
• 04:19 managing the project.
• 04:21 Some of the considerations then would be, one,
• 04:24 a core team members managing the task.
• 04:26 Two, there are estimates for the task, effort, duration and budget.
• 04:30 Three, the relationship or dependencies between the task and
• 04:34 other tasks are clear so the core team members understand any linkages.
• 04:38 Four, the task deliverable, the definition of done, is clear and
• 04:42 understood by all core team members.
• 04:44 And five, the roles and responsibilities of core team members and
• 04:48 their departments with respect to each task is also clear.
• 04:52 Too much detail creates an extra burden on the core team and
• 04:56 adds unnecessary complexity.
• 04:59 Breaking the project into hundreds or thousands of micro tasks just adds a lot
• 05:03 of work which may make it harder to manage the project effectively.
• 05:08 But not enough detail will mask risks and hide problems until it's too late
• 05:12 to fix them without a major impact for the project.
• 05:16 So, the bottom line is a judgment call based upon risk.
• 05:19 In the areas of high risk, such as a poor estimate, an unclear deliverable,
• 05:24 or confused roles and responsibilities, it requires more detail.
• 05:28 When there is low risk because the questions here are easily answered,
• 05:32 less detail is required.
• 05:34 One other comment, on a small project with only one or two people and
• 05:38 just a handful of tasks, you don't need a WBS.
• 05:41 It's easy to track what is happening.
• 05:44 On a large project with hundreds of tasks and dozens of people,
• 05:48 a WBS is critically important as a tool for project management and the core
• 05:53 team to keep track of what is happening in identifying and managing risk.
• 05:58 The work breakdown structure is a great tool that help
• 06:03 both the project manager and the core team to keep
• 06:08 track of all the work on large complex projects.

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