When we look at failed projects, they almost always show the same flaw; a "to do" list work breakdown structure. Too many people think the WBS should be a listing of everything that has to be done in the project. That's the wrong way.
The right approach to the WBS is that we are designing assignments for our project team. That is, the WBS is a listing of the "hunks" of the project we will manage, not a procedure for doing the project.
What's you approach?
Dick Billows, PMP
The right approach to the WBS is that we are designing assignments for our project team. That is, the WBS is a listing of the "hunks" of the project we will manage, not a procedure for doing the project.
What's you approach?
Dick Billows, PMP
4 comments:
I agree with your point.
Besides the technical activities, there are lot of management activities in a project. It is not impossible to include all management activities in WBS. Also, it has no big value to do so.
I certainly don't want that level of detail in the WBS. On the other hand I do want to make sure that the teams know what to do to achieve their goals. One way of knowing that, is if breakdown to activity level is developed/provided. The granularity is key. I expect that each of us has own level of detail that he likes working with. I know PMs who are comfortable with multi-thousand-line mpp files and do excellent job. Myself - I don't think I would cope with that.
My approach is: by calling it a Product Breakdown Structure (PBS) you easily switch to assignments. So not activities are leading, but deliverables are leading in the PBS.
In my experience I've found that a single MS Project plan can serve as both the WBS and the activity list. When I collapse all the nodes in a given plan I then have a list of summary activities which feels more like the WBS. As the nodes are expanded then more detail is displayed and I get to something that's more like the list of activities. The biggest benefit to this approach is that my WBS and activity list remain tightly integrated... because they're the same document. I generally don't create WBS "charts" because I feel that they take too much time to format nicely (even with the latest MS Project and Visio).
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