What is the term for a hierarchical representation of the project deliverables?

A Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is a hierarchical outline of the tasks required to complete a project. The WBS “breaks down” the structure of a project into manageable deliverables.

A Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is a hierarchical outline of the tasks required to complete a project. The WBS “breaks down” the structure of a project into manageable deliverables. Each deliverable is assigned a task, or series of tasks that can be further broken down into subtasks to meet the needs of the project.

The advantage of using a WBS as part of project lifecycle management is that is takes large, complex projects and breaks them into smaller, more manageable tasks that can be assigned to specific people or teams to deliver.

Purpose of the Work Breakdown Structure

The primary purpose of the WBS is too plan the schedule for the project. Each task duration is planned in conjunction with its required predecessors and following tasks. The WBS then provides an overall plan so that the project manager can see how the project should progress and manage the workflow appropriately.

Related: What is a Cost Breakdown Structure?

WBS Components

The parts of the WBS include:

• Tasks – a number, ID, title, and description of each task.
• Task Owner – who is responsible for completing the task.
• Task Dependency and Predecessors – linking two tasks together if one depends on the completion of the other.
• Start and Finish Date of Task – estimates the time each task will take and ultimately the entire project.
• Duration – how long will each task take on the calendar (usually number of days or hours).
• Work Estimate – how many hours/days of work are required to complete the task (combining all resource hours together if working in parallel).
• Task Status – whether each task is assigned to an owner/resource, started, in progress, late, complete, etc.
• Gantt Chart – a visualization of the WBS with tasks represented graphically over time.

The WBS is a central component of Project Business Automation, as it acts as the primary schedule against which all other activities and system operations are executed.

See How the Work Breakdown Structure in PBA Works

Eliminate standalone project management applications and the overhead needed to manage them.

• Leverage the project schedule to accurately build a labor budget, time-phase earned value estimates, and generate cash flow projections
• Apply the timeline directly to MRP for production orders, and automatically constrain the schedule based on procurement or production delays
• Staff projects more efficiently and automatically feed status updates, issues and work estimates back to the schedule from the timesheet
• Evaluate cost to complete with real-time work estimates from the schedule
• Report on the financial impact of schedule changes immediately

To learn how a WBS should be integrated into the rest of your project processes and systems, Download the Project Business Automation Blueprint. It is the definitive guide to creating a comprehensive business system for your Project Business that ties together your project operations and financials seamlessly.

The Difference Between WBS and CBS

The WBS is an operational plan – what work will be done, how it will be completed and on what schedule. The Cost Breakdown Structure (CBS) is the financial plan of the project. Many companies use the WBS as their financial plan as well. However, this approach often leads to financial problems with the project. The WBS is far to granular to be able to manage costs effectively. Or, it can be far to general to get the right cost details and apply them to the appropriate general ledger areas.

The CBS is the answer. The CBS is linked to the WBS, but allows for a complete breakdown of the project for financial purposes, which enables effective project cost control and earned value analysis.

A 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 the required deliverables. A WBS is the cornerstone of effective project planning, execution, controlling, monitoring, and reporting. All the work contained within the WBS is to be identified, estimated, scheduled, and budgeted.

Work Breakdown Structure Diagram

The Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is developed to establish a common understanding of project scope. It is a hierarchical description of the work that must be done to complete the deliverables of a project. Each descending level in the WBS represents an increasingly detailed description of the project deliverables.

The first two levels of the WBS (the root node and Level 2) define a set of planned outcomes that collectively and exclusively represent 100% of the project scope. At each subsequent level, the children of a parent node collectively and exclusively represent 100% of the scope of their parent node. Here is a Work Breakdown Structure example:

Quality of a Work Breakdown Structures

A well-designed WBS describes planned outcomes instead of planned actions. Outcomes are the desired ends of the project, such as a product, result, or service, and can be predicted accurately. Actions, on the other hand, may be difficult to predict accurately. A well-designed WBS makes it easy to assign elements of the WBS to any project activity. A good WBS should exhibit the following characteristics:

• Definable—can be described and easily understood by project participants.
• Manageable—a meaningful unit of work where specific responsibility and authority can be assigned to a responsible individual.
• Estimateable—duration can be estimated in time required to complete, and cost can be estimated in resources required to complete.
• Independent—minimum interface with or dependence on other ongoing elements (i.e., assignable to a single control account, and clearly distinguishable from other work packages).
• Integratable—integrates with other project work elements and with higher level cost estimates and schedules to include the entire project.
• Measurable—can be used to measure progress; has start and completion dates and measurable interim milestones.
• Adaptable—sufficiently flexible so the addition/elimination of work scope can be readily accommodated in the WBS framework.

Guidelines for Developing Work Breakdown Structure

The development of Work Breakdown Structure involves subdividing the major project activities or sub-activities into smaller, more manageable activities until the activities are defined in sufficient detail to support the management and development of project works. The items at the lowest level of a branch are known as work packages. Here are some tips in developing a Work Breakdown Structure that can express works effectively:

1. Always express Work Breakdown Structure activities at the lowest levels of granularity in verb form.
2. Review the Work Breakdown Structure. Make sure all deliverables have been fully covered by the works defined in the Work Breakdown Structure.
3. Ensure that testing and training have been taken into account.
4. Ensure that non-IT work packages are also included such as, documentation and review activities are included in the structure.
5. Ensure that other supporting activities such as, product/service launch and implementation activities are planned.
6. Ensure that delivery approval cycles are taken into account.
7. Include project management deliverables on the project as well (e.g. production of Project Plan). Include any deliverables that must be met or delivered by the customer or any external parties. Check the Work Breakdown Structure against the project approach specified in Project Charter for any activities that needs to be included in the Work Breakdown Structure.

Different Forms of Work Breakdown Structure

Generally speaking, there are three typical ways in structuring works with a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). They includes phase-based structures, deliverable-based structures and responsibility-based structures.

Phase-based structures

Define and structure project activities based on the project phases.

Deliverable-based structures

Define and structure project activities based on the deliverables agreed to deliver.

Responsibility-based structure

Define and structure project activities based on the organization units that will work on the project.

Other Use Cases of Breakdown Structure

Typical use of breakdown structure as a project management tool includes Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), Resource Breakdown Structure, Risk Breakdown Structure and Organization Breakdown Structure (OBS), or sometimes known as Organization Chart.

Resource Breakdown Structure

Resource Breakdown Structure (RBS) is a project management tool that provides a hierarchical decomposition of resources, either structured by resource category, types or by IT/business function that has resource needs.

Here is a Resource Breakdown Structure example:

Risk Breakdown Structure

Risks are everything in any IT project. The existence of risk causes negative impact on project schedule, costs and quality. In project management, Project Manager is responsible for managing risks and to ensure that the project will be delivered on time, within project and up to the standard user expected. One of the popular risk management tool is the Risk Breakdown Structure.

Risk breakdown Structure is the hierarchical decomposition of risks, starting from the root node element that represents the project, and going down to the various risk categories, and then finer level risks.

Besides presenting project risks in a Risk Breakdown Structure, it is possible to combine the use of Color Legend in representing the impact of risk. Take a look at the Risk Breakdown Structure example below, a legend of Impact with five items has been setup, representing the five levels of impacts that risks may have on the project with five distinct color code.

Here is a Risk Breakdown Structure example:

Organizational Breakdown Structure

Organizational Breakdown Structure, or sometimes known as Organization Chart, is a widely used project management tool for representing project organization. It typically begins with the project sponsor, and with all key stakeholders included. In presenting the organization structure, consider the organization or group that is requesting the project and the level of their sponsorship and authority.

Here is an Organizational Breakdown Structure example:

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