How to use a Work Breakdown Structure to manage your project
Easy to say that a Workbreakdown Structure is a useful tool but another thing on figuring out how to use it.
A few newsletters ago, I wrote about the Work Breakdown Structure and what a powerful tool it is for you to manage your project. This second part is about the practical application of the WBS in your project.
The WBS captures all the scope and activity for the project. If it’s not in the WBS then it’s not in the scope of the project. In saying that, the WBS is not something done once and that’s it. It’s an artefact that gets reviewed and updated throughout the project.
Whole Team Approach
It is first created at the beginning of the project when you start your Discovery process. The WBS is created by the whole team and not done in isolation. This will ensure that all relevant scope is covered in the WBS. The WBS gets reviewed and updated as you progress through Discovery. And continues to be updated throughout the lifecycle of the project as changes in scope and as new information gets identified.
Two key pieces of information form inputs into the WBS. They are the project objectives and the project approach. The project objectives cover information on what the project is trying to achieve what the benefits are and timeframes. The project approach is a high-level view of how the project will be delivered.
This information may come in separate artefacts or are part of the initial project documentation during inception. It is dependent on the organisational processes and frameworks of projects.
The WBS mitigates several risks:
it ensures that there are no missing, duplicate or unnecessary activities by defining and capturing the work.
it provides a consistent view of what the project covers and how it is delivered
ensuring that the in-scope elements are being monitored and controlled.
Scheduling Your Project
Once the WBS is completed, it is used to develop the project plan. The WBS is an input into the project scheduling. Use to identify the sequence of activities and dependencies. As part of this work, you and your team can identify the type of dependencies of the activities - Finish to Start; Start to Start; Finish to Finish. It can be used to identify any gaps in the project activities and milestones.
Since the WBS captures activities at the work package level, this can be used by the various teams to estimate the work and identify the resources required. These estimates can be rolled up to the parent level and give you the overall estimate.
Managing Risks, Assumptions, Issues and Dependencies
With the WBS breaking down the scope of the project to work package level this is also quite powerful in identifying RAID(Risks, Assumptions, Issues and Dependencies) items. For example, a particular work package identifies that it is dependent on a solution from another project. This creates a dependency on the other project and a risk for that work package that may be delivered late.
These RAID items can then be included in the register and monitored and managed.
Monitoring and Controlling
The WBS can also be used for controlling and monitoring the project. Each work package within the WBS can be used to track progress, who is working on it, how much time has been spent, how much longer it will take, whether it is behind schedule, and what actions to take.
These work packages can be assigned and tracked either in a status report, Kanban board or any other system for tracking work on a project.
Milestones can be derived from the WBS. WBS helps to decompose the project into deliverables and phases, from that breakdown, you can identify milestones and the work required to deliver the milestone.
Communication
Since it captures all scope and work within the project, the WBS can be used as input into the project’s communication plan.
It provides clarity on the scope, deliverables and milestones. Discussions on scope and additional scope items can use the WBS as an anchoring document.
It helps with aligning team members and stakeholders on accountability - who owns which tasks. The milestones and deliverables can be used in status reporting.
Change management impacts could also be identified using the WBS. It won’t be the only input in the impact assessment and can be used in conjunction with other artefacts like the stakeholder list, future/ to-be process maps, requirements and design documents.
Quality Assurance
For quality assurance, the team will be able to break down the work and identify the quality assurance activities and deliverables. For example, activities like design review and requirements walkthrough can be identified. This can be used to plan the effort and work and identify the dependencies to complete the QA activities.
The QA team can identify the components that need to be completed before they can do the end-to-end testing and ensure that system testing is completed beforehand. This will also help to identify areas where risks may come up and activities to mitigate them.
QA activities can then be scheduled using a Scheduling tool like MS Project. The QA activities can be used to monitor progress via a project plan and a regular update from the team via a status report.
Any approved change requests would need the WBS to be updated so it remains up-to-date and relevant for the project. Following on from this, all other artefacts can be updated. This ensures that no documentation is missed and that the project continues to monitor and control the various elements.
A Fundamental Tool
WBS can be an effective tool for managing your project. It is a foundation for the planning and execution of the project. It is under-utilised and seen by some as a waste of time. The WBS is worth the time and effort to create and maintain and will help you manage your project more effectively.
Practice - test it and see
It may seem like additional work if you haven’t used a WBS before. I would suggest that you test it and see how it goes. Don’t go big, start small. Create a WBS structure for your project, you don’t have to wait for a new one. See what you and the team get from it. Are there gaps that you have missed? Are there insights from it that you can use in your plan, risk management, and estimation?
Even if you don’t get anything out of it straight away, persevere with it until the end of the project. You may be surprised what value you get from it.
Quote
“Plans are of little importance, but planning is essential.” ― Winston Churchill, former British Prime Minister
Work Breakdown Structure and all the other artefacts aren’t the results that we’re after. They are tools to help the project deliver the customer and business outcomes. Your governance framework may require you to create these artefacts but don’t lose sight of what you’re delivering.
Resources - Trello
Trello is a tool I use for small personal projects. It is simple to use and it’s free. It doesn’t have a plethora of features and integration like JIRA. But that’s not the reason I use Trello.
It has a lot of resources on how to set it up and use it for different types of teams and work. If you’re looking for a simple digital tool to manage an agile project, check out Trello.
My Resources
Below are some of my free resources if you’re new to project management.
Paid Resources
Simple and Effective Project Risk Management - for those new to project management. It will teach you what you need to know and get you started quickly.