Work Breakdown Structures

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Work Breakdown Structures
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Fifteen Project Management Job Functions

• Identify and evaluate risks
• Prepare contingency plan
• Identify interdependencies
• Identify and track critical milestones
• Participate in project phase review
• Secure needed resources
• Manage the change control process
• Report project status

• Define scope of project
• Identify stakeholders, decision-makers, and
  escalation procedures
• Develop detailed task list (work breakdown
  structures)
• Estimate time requirements
• Develop initial project management flow chart
• Identify required resources and budget
• Evaluate project requirements

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Overlap of Process Groups in a Phase (PMBOK
Guide, 2000)
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Relationships Among Process Groups and Knowledge
Areas (PMBOK Guide 2000, p. 38)
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Relationships Among Process Groups and Knowledge
Areas (PMBOK Guide)
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Project Planning

• The main purpose of project planning is to guide
  execution
• Every knowledge area includes planning
  information
• Key outputs include
• A team contract
• A scope statement (project charter)
• A work breakdown structure (WBS)
• A project schedule, in the form of a Gantt chart
  with all dependencies and resources entered
• A list of prioritized risks

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PMI Process Project Gantt Chart
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Scope Planning and theScope Statement

• A scope statement is a document used to develop
  and confirm a common understanding of the project
  scope. It should include
• a project justification
• a brief description of the projects products
• a summary of all project deliverables
• a statement of what determines project success

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Scope Planning and the Work Breakdown Structure

• After completing scope planning, the next step is
  to further define the work by breaking it into
  manageable pieces
• Good scope definition
• helps improve the accuracy of time, cost, and
  resource estimates
• defines a baseline for performance measurement
  and project control
• aids in communicating clear work responsibilities

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List of Prioritized Risks
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The Work Breakdown Structure

• A work breakdown structure (WBS) is a
  deliverable-oriented grouping of the work
  involved in a project that defines the total
  scope of the project
• It is a foundation document in project management
  because it provides the basis for planning and
  managing project schedules, costs, and changes

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Approaches to Developing WBSs

• Using guidelines Some organizations, like the
  DoD, provide guidelines for preparing WBSs
• The analogy approach Review WBSs of similar
  projects and tailor to your project
• The top-down approach Start with the largest
  items of the project and break them down
• The bottom-up approach Start with the detailed
  tasks and roll them up
• Mind-mapping approach Write down tasks in a
  non-linear format and then create the WBS
  structure

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Basic Principles for Creating WBSs

• 1. A unit of work should appear at only one place
  in the WBS.
• 2. The work content of a WBS item is the sum of
  the WBS items below it.
• 3. A WBS item is the responsibility of only one
  individual, even though many people may be
  working on it.
• 4. The WBS must be consistent with the way in
  which work is actually going to be performed it
  should serve the project team first and other
  purposes only if practical.
• 5. Project team members should be involved in
  developing the WBS to ensure consistency and
  buy-in.
• 6. Each WBS item must be documented to ensure
  accurate understanding of the scope of work
  included and not included in that item.
• 7. The WBS must be a flexible tool to accommodate
  inevitable changes while properly maintaining
  control of the work content in the project
  according to the scope statement.

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Sample Intranet WBSOrganized by Product
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Sample Intranet Organized by Phase
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Intranet WBS in Tabular Form
1.0 Concept 1.1 Evaluate current systems 1.2
Define Requirements 1.2.1 Define user
requirements 1.2.2 Define content
requirements 1.2.3 Define system
requirements 1.2.4 Define server owner
requirements 1.3 Define specific
functionality 1.4 Define risks and risk
management approach 1.5 Develop project
plan 1.6 Brief Web development team 2.0 Web Site
Design 3.0 Web Site Development 4.0 Roll Out 5.0
Support
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Intranet Project with Gantt Chart
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Intranet WBS and Gantt Chart Organized by Project
Management Process Groups
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Sample Mind-Mapping Approach
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Sample Gantt Chart
The WBS is on the left, and each tasks start and
finish date are shown on the right using a
calendar timescale. Early Gantt Charts, first
used in 1917, were drawn by hand.
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Sample Network Diagram
Each box is a project task from the WBS. Arrows
show dependencies between tasks. The bolded tasks
are on the critical path. If any tasks on
the critical path take longer than planned, the
whole project will slip unless something is
done. Network diagrams were first used in 1958
on the Navy Polaris project, before project
management software was available.
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Sample Enterprise Project Management Tool
In recent years, organizations have been taking
advantage of software to help manage their
projects throughout the enterprise.
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Project Time Management Processes

• Project time management involves the processes
  required to ensure timely completion of a
  project. Processes include
• Activity definition
• Activity sequencing
• Activity duration estimating
• Schedule development
• Schedule control

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Activity Definition

• Project schedules grow out of the basic document
  that initiate a project
• Project charter includes start and end dates and
  budget information
• Scope statement and WBS help define what will be
  done
• Activity definition involves developing a more
  detailed WBS and supporting explanations to
  understand all the work to be done so you can
  develop realistic duration estimates

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Activity Sequencing

• Involves reviewing activities and determining
  dependencies
• Mandatory dependencies inherent in the nature of
  the work hard logic
• Discretionary dependencies defined by the
  project team soft logic
• External dependencies involve relationships
  between project and non-project activities
• You must determine dependencies in order to use
  critical path analysis

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Project Network Diagrams

• Project network diagrams are the preferred
  technique for showing activity sequencing
• A project network diagram is a schematic display
  of the logical relationships among, or sequencing
  of, project activities

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Sample Activity-on-Arrow (AOA) Network Diagram
for Project X
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Precedence Diagramming Method (PDM)

• Activities are represented by boxes
• Arrows show relationships between activities
• Better at showing different types of dependencies

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Task Dependency Types
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Sample PDM Network Diagram
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Activity Duration Estimating

• After defining activities and determining their
  sequence, the next step in time management is
  duration estimating
• Duration includes the actual amount of time
  worked on an activity plus elapsed time
• Effort is the number of workdays or work hours
  required to complete a task. Effort does not
  equal duration
• People doing the work should help create
  estimates, and an expert should review them

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Schedule Development

• Schedule development uses results of the other
  time management processes to determine the start
  and end date of the project and its activities
• Ultimate goal is to create a realistic project
  schedule that provides a basis for monitoring
  project progress for the time dimension of the
  project
• Important tools and techniques include Gantt
  charts, PERT analysis, critical path analysis,
  and critical chain scheduling

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Gantt Charts

• Gantt charts provide a standard format for
  displaying project schedule information by
  listing project activities and their
  corresponding start and finish dates in a
  calendar format
• Symbols include
• A black diamond milestones or significant events
  on a project with zero duration
• Thick black bars summary tasks
• Lighter horizontal bars tasks
• Arrows dependencies between tasks

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Gantt Chart for Project X
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Gantt Chart for Software Launch Project
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Milestones

• Milestones are significant events on a project
  that normally have zero duration
• You can follow the SMART criteria in developing
  milestones that are
• Specific
• Measurable
• Assignable
• Realistic
• Time-framed

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Sample Tracking Gantt Chart
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Critical Path Method (CPM)

• CPM is a project network analysis technique used
  to predict total project duration
• A critical path for a project is the series of
  activities that determines the earliest time by
  which the project can be completed
• The critical path is the longest path through the
  network diagram and has the least amount of slack
  or float

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Finding the Critical Path

• First develop a good project network diagram
• Add the durations for all activities on each path
  through the project network diagram
• The longest path is the critical path

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Simple Example of Determining the Critical Path

• Consider the following project network diagram.
  Assume all times are in days.

a. How many paths are on this network diagram?
b. How long is each path? c. Which is the
critical path? d. What is the shortest amount of
time needed to complete this project?
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Determining the Critical Path for Project X
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More on the Critical Path

• If one or more activities on the critical path
  takes longer than planned, the whole project
  schedule will slip unless corrective action is
  taken
• Misconceptions
• The critical path is not the one with all the
  critical activities it only accounts for time.
• There can be more than one critical path if the
  lengths of two or more paths are the same
• The critical path can change as the project
  progresses

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Using Critical Path Analysis to Make Schedule
Trade-offs

• Knowing the critical path helps you make schedule
  trade-offs
• Free slack or free float is the amount of time an
  activity can be delayed without delaying the
  early start of any immediately following
  activities
• Total slack or total float is the amount of time
  an activity may be delayed from its early start
  without delaying the planned project finish date
• A forward pass through the network diagram
  determines the early start and finish dates
• A backward pass determines the late start and
  finish dates

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Calculating Early and Late Start and Finish Dates
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Project Schedule Table View Showing Free and
Total Slack