BY Rochelle Elva

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WORK BREAKDOWN STRUCTURE RICHARD E. FAIRLEY 1998
BY Rochelle Elva
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REFERENCES

• Berg. C. Colenso, K. Work Breakdown Structure
  Practice Standard Project-WBS vs. Activities. PM
  Network, April 2000. Accessed from WWW
  http//www.pmi.org/prod/groups/public/documents/in
  fo/pp_articleswbs.pdf Jan 26, 2005.
• Practice Standards for Work Breakdown Structures
  Update Project. Accessed from WWW
  http//www.pmi.org/prod/groups/public/documents/in
  fo/pp_wbsupdate.pdf Jan 26, 2005.
• Project Planning and Graphic Software. Accessed
  from WWW http//www.criticaltools.com/wbsmain.htm
  Jan 26, 2005.
• Stuckenbruck L. C. (1981) Work Breakdown
  Structures. Software Engineering Project
  Management ed. by Richard H. Thayer, IEEE
  Computer Society Press, 1997. Page(s) 183 189.
• Work Breakdown Structure. Accessed from WWW
  http//www.centipedia.com/articles/Work_breakdown_
  structure. Jan 26, 2005.
• Work Breakdown Structure. Accessed from WWW
  http//www.hyperthot.com/pm_wbs.htm Jan 26,
  2005.
• Work Breakdown Structure. U.S. Department of
  Energy Office of Management, Budget and
  Evaluation. Revised Edition, June 2003.

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OUTLINE

• DEFINITION
• RATIONALE
• OVERVIEW - Process WBS - Product WBS - Hybrid
  WBS
• DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS
• STEPS IN DEVELOPING WBS
• TOOLS
• PLACE OF WBS ON THE CMM MATURITY SCALE

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DEFINITION

• Military Standard (MIL-STD) 881B (25 Mar 93) as
  follows "A work breakdown structure is a
  product-oriented family tree composed of
  hardware, software, services, data and facilities
  .... it displays and defines the product (s) to
  be developed and/or produced and relates the
  elements of work to be accomplished to each other
  and to the end product (s).
• Bridging document following the Scope but
  before Schedule
• a powerful tool for expressing the scope or
  extent of a project in simple graphic terms. It
  represents the project in terms of the hierarchy
  of deliverables and services it will produce
• Project Management tool used to partition
  products/process into small manageable unit.

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RATIONALE

• Cognitive psychologists say that our brains can
  understand no more than about 7-9 items
  simultaneously
• Projects with 1000s tasks are confusing
• A divide and conquer approach is a logical
  approach
• WBS decomposes large problems into smaller chunks
  that our brains can handle

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RATIONALE contd

• Takes 50 shorter than development using a to do
  list
• Used by managers to determine and control project
  costs and to schedule each project element
• Helps in identifying terminal element
  facilitating good project planning
• Used at the beginning of the project to -
  define scope -estimate costs -organize Gantt
  chart schedules

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RATIONALE contd

• Identifies potential complexities early in
  development
• Clarifies the relationship between process and
  work products
• Saves time during project development and makes
  for better control
• Defines the what of the project
• Provides mechanism for performance measurement

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OVERVIEW OF WBS
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REPRESENTATION

• May be represented as a tree structured graph
  illustrating the is a relationship
• May be represented as an indented list the degree
  of indentation representing the extent of
  containment
• Both representations use a digital numbering
  system to represents positions on the different
  levels
• Top level is numbered 0 or 1

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SOME EXAMPLES
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WBS TREE
TOP LEVEL
LEV. 0
LEV. 1
LEV. 2
LEV. 3
LEV. 4
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(No Transcript)
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INDENTED EXAMPLE
0.0 PAINTING PROJECT 1.0 Prepare
Materials 1.1 Buy Paint 1.2 Buy
ladder 1.3 Buy Brushes 1.4 Buy wallpaper
remover 2.0 Prepare Room 2.1 Remove old
wallpaper 2.2 Remove detachable old
decorations 2.3 Cover floor with
newspaper 2.4 Cover electrical outlets 2.5
Cover furniture with sheets 3.0 Paint Room and
Clean up 3.1 Dispose of store left over
paint 3.2 Clean brushes 3.3 Dispose of
newspaper 3.4 Remove covers
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APPROACHES

• Process/Activity
• Product/Deliverable
• Hybrid

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PROCESS APPROACH
LARGE PROCESS
SMALLER PROCESS
SMALLER PROCESS
TASK
TASK
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0.0
PROCESS-ORIENTED
7.0
1.0
2.0
3.0
4.0
5.0
6.0
2.1
2.2
2.3
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PRODUCT APPROACH
LARGE ENTITY
COMPONENT INTERFACE
COMPONENT INTERFACE
CI
CI
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PRODUCT-ORIENTED
0.0
4.0
5.0
6.0
1.0
7.0
2.0
3.0
4.1
4.2
4.3
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HYBRID APPROACH

• Encompasses the advantages of both process and
  product approaches
• Begin with product or process and then
  interleaves with process or product at lower
  levels
• Types process-product product-process

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HYBRID APPROACH
LARGE PROCESS/PRODUCT
SMALLER PROCESS/PRODUCT
SMALLER PROCESS/PRODUCT
EVEN SMALLER PROCESS/PRODUCT
EVEN SMALLER PROCESS/PRODUCT
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COMPARISON OF PROJECT AND PROCESS WBS
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WBS DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS
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FEATURES OF GOOD WBS

• Completeness
• Consistency
• Created by those actually doing the work
• Clear and concise
• Facilitates roll-up of information to higher
  levels
• Receives 100 support from team
• Maps all deliverables stated in contract
• Detailed and written in measurable terms
• Achieves project objectives

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• WBS design should try to achieve certain goals
• Be compatible with how the work will be done
  and how costs and schedules will be
  managed,
• Give visibility to important or risky work
  efforts,
• Allow mapping of requirements, plans, testing,
  and deliverables,
• Foster clear ownership by managers and task
  leaders,
• Provide data for performance measurement and
  historical databases
• Make sense to the workers and accountants.
• Each level should contain 2-7 elements
• Keep organizations numbering standards

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DOCUMENTATION IN WBS

• WBS Diagram
• WBS Dictionary - entry of each element of the
  WBS - each element represented by name and
  number - for product elements outlines allocated
  requirements - for process elements
  points to a work package associated with the
  element
• Work package specification

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WORK PACKAGE SPECIFICATION
Activity number Activity name Activity
description Estimated Duration Resources needed
4.3.5 ARCH-SS-XYZ Specify the architectural
structure of subsystem XYZ 1 Week PERSONNEL 2
Senior telecomm designers SKILL Designers
familiar with X25 protocol TOOL 1 Sun
workstation running IDE TRAVEL One 3-day design
review in San Diego Architectural specification
fpr SS-XYZ Test Plan for subsystem XYZ Yes for
both 4.3.2 4.3.6.1 4.3.6.2 Sign-off for
subsystem XYZ by chief architect Availability of
senior designers
Work products Baselines Predecessors Successors
Completion criteria Risks Implementation Pers
onnel assign Starting date Costs (budgeted
actual) Legacy comments
--------------------------------------------------
- -------------- Completion date
--------------------------- --------------------
-------- ------------------------------
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CHARACTERISTICS OF WBS ELEMENTS

• DEFINABLE can be described and easily understood
  by project participants
• MANAGEABLE indicate a meaningful unit of work
  for which authority and responsibility can be
  assigned to personnel
• ESTIMATEABLE it should be possible to make cost
  and resource estimate
• INDEPENDENT minimum interface with other
  elements making it possible to assign element
  to a single account
• INTEGRABLE
• MEASUREABLE possible to measure progress. Has
  projected start and end date
• ADAPTABLE flexible to dealing with changes made
  to work scope

US Dept of Energy 2003
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THINGS TO EXCLUDE FROM THE WBS

• Elements that are not products
• Program phases
• Use actual system names not nomenclatures

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DESIGN OF WBS
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STEPS IN DEVELOPING WBS

• Determine the reason for the WBS
• Identify the product or project being decomposed
• Create 2-7 major partitions
• For each element from the second level create 2-7
  levels
• Repeat decompositions in subsequent levels
• If the WBS is being used for planning or
  estimation decompose until hidden complexity is
  exposed
• If the purpose is to assign tasks then decompose
  until work packages are obtained

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ALTERNATE DEVELOPMENT STEPS(Rolling Wave)

• Identify most important element
• Develop the first few elements down to their
  lowest level
• Develop other elements in increments as the need
  arises

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TOOLS FOR WBS
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WBS Chart Pro

• A drag and drop Windows-based project management
  software application used to create and display
  projects using WBS
• Chart Pro can be used - As a planning tool,
  - to quickly sketch a project plan on the
  screen
• Works seamlessly with Microsoft Project but MP is
  not necessary
• Plans generated using Chart Pro can be maintained
  and managed separately or can be transferred to
  Microsoft Project or any program capable of
  reading MPX files

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FEATURES of WBS CHART PRO

• Create Projects in WBS Chart Pro
• Create WBS charts from Microsoft Project
• Display High Level or Summary Views of your
  Projects
• Display an Unlimited Number of Fields
• View Sections of the Plan
• Print Scaling
• MPX Support
• Save to Web Pages
• Save as Picture
• Unlimited Capacity
• Adjust for Page Breaks
• Support for Non-English Versions of Microsoft
  Project
• Compatible with Project KickStart

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WBS Chart Pro Example
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WBS in CMM

• WBS is at level 2 Repeatable stage It provides
  documentation making it possible to implement
  similar projects by repeating all or part of
  earlier breakdown

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SUMMARY

• Overview of WBS - Process WBS - Product WBS -
  Hybrid WBS
• Designing a WBS
• Tools
• Place of WBS in CMM

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CONCLUSION

• WBS work breakdown structure is a project
  management tool
• Used to understand the project through divide and
  conquer strategy
• Facilitating smooth project development
• Providing documentation making the process
  repeatable
• Invaluable tool at the beginning of project and a
  valuable reference throughout development

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QUESTIONS?
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All DoneThank You