Working with a WBS

There s no right or wrong way to create a WBS. You can draw an elaborate decomposition on a whiteboard, sketch it out on a cocktail napkin, or be more technical and use a piece of software such as Microsoft Project or even Excel, Visio, or PowerPoint. It is best, however, to use some common terminology when addressing your WBS.

A project, of course, is a complete piece of work that has a definite end date, produces a defined set of deliverables, and is an investment by an organization. For example, the software application that allows web users to search a database of boots requires a scope, defined deliverable , commitment of resources, and targeted end date.

Within the project there are phases. Well, technically there don t have to be any phases, but most projects have clear identifiable phases that segment the project work. A phase is a portion of the project that typically must be completed before the next phase can begin. Each phase has a set deadline. For example, the cowboy boot database project could have four phases: creation of the database, creation of the application, creation of the web interface, and troubleshooting and implementation. Typically, phases do not overlap each other in production, but it is possible that they can as they do in this example; each phase, while reliant on the others, could be completed in parallel rather than sequentially.

Within each phase, there are work packages. A work package is the smallest deliverable within the WBS. The project s activity list can be derived from the work packages. For example, within the cowboy boots project, the phase to create the database encompasses several work packages required for completion. A database administrator needs to create the database with the application designer to ensure consistency, a system needs to be built to enter the different attributes of the boots for searching, hooks need to be made between this database and an existing database production uses to create the boots, and probably more. Figure 5-1 shows the different components of a WBS.

Figure 5-1: A WBS consists of the project, phases, work units, and tasks .

When you do break down deliverables, keep in mind that the smallest layer of decomposition consists of work packages. Again, with the cowboy boots database, the work package representing the different attributes of the boots could consist of several tables for sizes, colors, styles, and prices with keys linked to other tables to create the relational database. In other words, a boot called the Montana Boot can be searched for by color , size , and price. The creation of these tables could, and most likely would, be considered a single task.