PMcrunch

Building the Work Breakdown Schedule is a lot of good hard project management work. While it is fundamental to the practice of professional project management, often it is soft skills - including plain old determination and leadership - that in the end produce a strong WBS.

The Work Breakdown Schedule includes a listing and details of all work packages related to the project. A key document in the definition of project scope, it can be said - accurately - that “if it is not in the WBS, it is not part of the project”. Breaking down the project into work packages - manageable and assignable chunks - involves thoroughly thinking through the details of the project before any work is really done. It also involves the cooperation and input of a variety of individuals that make up the project team.

The issue is that it takes a lot of discipline, patience, motivation, coordination, and hard work to build a useful and effective WBS. The challenge is that team members often do not have the experience or the makeup to realize the value of the WBS, and simply want to “get on with the work”. They are anxious to stop the talking and planning, and actually get things done.

But the old adage “measure twice, cut once” comes into play. Here is a 6 point prescription for the “WBS Blues” that you can make to your project team to get their buy in on building the WBS:

1. How can you monitor and report status if you do not have the complete picture of the project?
2. How can you set up and utilize tools such as earned value without a WBS in place?
3. How can you clearly and precisely provide direction to project team members for the work they need to do, when, how, and how it fits with the rest of the project?
4. What can guide prioritization of work if you do not have a good work breakdown?
5. How can you manage scope creep - critical to keeping the project team insulated from forces outside the project team?
6. What will be the basis for a change management system if you do not have a baseline WBS?

Project Team members typically are very good at their work and want to do it! However, a tremendous amount of wasted effort, and even project failure, can result if they are not working to a plan. It is the job of the project manager to educate the team enough about the value of the WBS in the planning process to motivate them to participate in the up front planning before they delve into the work.

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John Reiling, PMP
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