Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) Paper

Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) Paper

Within reason, is there such a thing as a project that is too complex to complete? Consider the Space Shuttle. One of the most complex machines ever built, the Space Shuttle had over 2.5 million parts, each of which had to be accounted for by someone. How did anyone manage to track and properly assemble these parts? The answer is through the application of a work breakdown structure (WBS). A WBS is a fundamental tool that project managers use to organize and divide the work of a project. A WBS focuses on breaking down a project’s scope into individual deliverables that may be created by assigned team members.

There are multiple work breakdown structure formats and each has its own advantages and disadvantages. Project managers select a type of WBS based upon the specifics of the project they are managing. Each WBS format emphasizes different aspects of a project. These varied perspectives may each be appropriate, depending upon what information a project manager needs.

In this Discussion, you analyze different WBS formats and evaluate whether they meet basic criteria for clarity.

To prepare:

• Explore the Work Breakdown Structure Formats document included in this week’s Learning Resources. The document presents a scenario and three corresponding WBS formats that pertain to the scenario. (SEE ATTACHED PDF FILE)
• Consider the advantages and disadvantages of each WBS format included in the document.
• Think about the level of detail dedicated to task information in each WBS format. Evaluate the formats based on the following criteria for clarity:
• • The task has a measurable status or completion.
  • The task has defined start and end events.
  • The task has a deliverable.
  • The task’s time and cost are easily estimated.
  • The task can be completed without interruption and additional input after its start.

550 words essay in APA format with 3 references. Based on the Work Breakdown Structure Formats document attached in the file area, address the level one headings as numbered below:

1) An analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of each work breakdown structure format.

2) Provide an analysis of whether (and how) the work breakdown structures meet the assigned criteria for clarity.

3) Provide a rationale for your response.

Required Readings

Biafore, B. (2010). Microsoft Project 2010: The missing manual. Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly.

• Chapter 4, “Breaking Work Into Task-Sized Chunks” (pp. 77–100)

  This chapter explains how to create a work breakdown structure and how to import a work breakdown structure into Microsoft Project.

  Coplan, S., & Masuda, D. (2011). Project management for healthcare information technology. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

• Chapter 3, “Project Management”
  • “Prepare Work Breakdown Structure and WBS Dictionary” (pp. 53–56)

    This section of Chapter 3 reviews the core processes of preparing a work breakdown structure (WBS). The chapter provides an example of a WBS and details its essential components.

    Project Management Institute. (2013). A guide to the project management body of knowledge (PMBOK guide) (5th ed.). Newtown Square, PA: Author.

• Chapter 5, “Project Scope Management”
  • 5.3, “Create WBS” (pp. 125–132)

    This section of Chapter 5 reviews the process of creating a work breakdown structure. Specifically, the chapter examines how to determine inputs, WBS tools and techniques, and outputs.

    Kendrick, T. (2009). Identifying & managing project risk: Essential tools for failure-proofing your project(2nd ed., Ebrary version). New York, NY: AMACOM.

    Retrieved from the Walden Library databases.

• Chapter 3, “Identifying Project Scope Risk” (pp. 40–69)

  This chapter examines methods of identifying scope risks and the types of scope risks pertaining to project deliverables. The chapter highlights a variety of sources of scope risk as well.

  Shirey, M. R. (2008). Project management tools for leaders and entrepreneurs. Clinical Nurse Specialist, 22(3), 129–131.

  Retrieved from the Walden Library databases.

  The author of this article introduces project management tools that clinical nurse specialists may use to coordinate team work. The article highlights the usage of one such tool, the Gantt chart.

  Thomas, M., Jacques, P. H., Adams, J. R., & Kihneman-Wooten, J. (2008). Developing an effective project: Planning and team building combined. Project Management Journal, 39(4), 105–113.

  Retrieved from the Walden Library databases.

  This article analyzes project planning and control and the process of developing a project plan. The article also reports the results of research that sought to determine 137 organizations’ approaches to establishing projects.

  U.S. Government Accountability Office. (2009, March 2). Work breakdown structure. GAO Reports, 65–78. 

  Retrieved from the Walden Library databases.

  This article examines the importance of a work breakdown structure (WBS) in project management. The chapter demonstrates how a WBS assists in resource identification, cost estimation, and risk determination.

  Wu, Z., Schmidt, L. P., & Wigstrom, M. S. (2010). Product development workflow management based on work breakdown structure. IIE Annual Conference. Proceedings, 1–5.

  Retrieved from the Walden Library databases.

  The authors of this article highlight the usage of WBS in managing complex product development projects. The authors examine how a WBS helps represent and manage the intricacies of tasks and activity relationships.

  Mathis, M. (n.d.). Work breakdown structure: Purpose, process and pitfalls. Retrieved March 13, 2013, from http://www.projectsmart.co.uk/work-breakdown-structure-purpose-process-pitfalls.html

  This article provides a general review of the WBS. The author focuses on the purpose, process, and pitfalls of a WBS.

  Document: Work Breakdown Structure Formats (PDF) (See ATTACHED PDF IN FILE AREA)

  This document presents a scenario and three corresponding work breakdown structures that you will use for your Discussion this week.

  Required Media

  Laureate Education (Producer). (2013c). Planning, part I: Defining project scope and activities [Video file]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu 

  Note: The approximate length of this media piece is 6 minutes.

  In this presentation, the participants discuss defining project scope and project activities, using the work breakdown structure, and managing project risk through SWOT analysis.

MORE INFO 

Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

Introduction

Work breakdown structure (WBS) is a way to break down the work required for a project. It’s used in project management and can be helpful for describing your project as well as keeping track of its progress. The WBS diagram shows all the parts of a project and how they relate to each other, while coding helps you assign tasks to people who are responsible for completing them by assigning them numbers called “burndowns”.

Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

The work breakdown structure (WBS) is a deliverable-oriented hierarchical decomposition of the work to be executed by the project team to accomplish the project objectives and create required deliverables.

WBS is a critical tool for organizing, planning and controlling projects. It helps all members of a project team to know where they are in terms of scope/deliverables at any given time as well as how much progress has been made on each activity or task within their assigned area(s). The WBS diagram tool or chart software allows you to create a picture of your current state by displaying information about resources needed at this point in time along with who owns those resources so that you can see what work has been done so far before moving forward with other activities related specifically towards this particular stage; this helps avoid having multiple meetings per day since there’s no need anymore since all information has been gathered beforehand.”

Work breakdown structure diagram

The work breakdown structure (WBS) is a hierarchical decomposition of the total scope of work to be executed by the project team to accomplish the project objectives and create the required deliverables. It describes with precise detail, at each level, what activities or tasks must be performed in order to achieve all of the requirements at that level.

The WBS defines 100 percent of all work in your project—including all deliverables and all work required to create those deliverables.

WBS coding

WBS coding is a method of identifying the elements in the WBS. The codes are used to identify the elements in the WBS.

WBS coding is a way of identifying all of your work breakdown structure (WBS) items, and then breaking them down into subtasks or tasks. Other times, it can be used as an internal process that helps you organize yourself before starting work on any given task or project

WBS key elements

A WBS is a hierarchical list of work activities that describe the scope, effort and duration for each deliverable. It also includes any dependencies between activities (e.g., if you need to change the scope of an activity before it can be started).

A WBS key element represents one piece of information about an activity:

• Name: The name of the key element should be short enough so that it’s easy to read and understand but long enough that it doesn’t become too unwieldy when you have large numbers of them in your WBS structure (e.g., “Change Order Status” isn’t very helpful as a key element name).

• Description: This field describes what kind of thing this activity is—for example whether it’s something which requires human interaction or not; whether there are any restrictions on how many people can perform this task; etc.. * Scope: This field identifies what resources will be used during execution (e.g., people) and how long each resource will be used for each stage/step within each phase/phase within overall project delivery plan.* Planning phase duration estimate

WBS hierarchy and levels

The WBS is a hierarchical diagram that shows the sequence of activities and tasks required to complete a project. The WBS can be either a top-down approach or bottom-up approach, depending on how you define your scope and resources.

The WBS is also used as an organizational tool for tracking progress along with milestones and deadlines.

The WBS elements

The WBS is a hierarchical list of the various elements that make up the project. Each level in the hierarchy represents a subset of work packages, activities, deliverables and milestones that have been identified for your project. The WBS is used to organize information related to each phase or phase-based sub-project within your overall effort.

The following are examples of how you might divide up a large project into smaller pieces based on its scope:

• A large PMO may find it useful to break down their efforts into smaller projects instead of trying to manage everything at once. Each PMO team could be assigned responsibility for one part or aspect of their organization’s infrastructure (e.g., applications development). This would allow them more time not only because they won’t have so many things on their plate but also because there wouldn’t be as much overlap between tasks across different teams/departments either!

Takeaway:

The takeaway from this section is that a WBS is a hierarchical representation of the scope of a project. It’s an organized, deliverable-oriented top-down decomposition of the project into smaller components.

A well-designed WBS can be used to plan and control work, improve communication between teams and individuals within them, provide a common understanding of what they’re working on, create more efficient meetings and more—all while providing you with an easy way to manage your team’s progress!

Conclusion

In the WBS, we have three levels of hierarchy. The top level is our product, which has its own sub-levels. The second level is a functional level and contains different types of tasks such as marketing, finance and HR. The third level is called a task level, which contains smaller tasks that need specific people or resources to complete them.