Outlining the Work for a Project 

You are aware of the outcomes that your project must produce and its precise scope. Therefore, you must now plan. But how do you get started? 

One of the initial problems of project planning, regardless of how big or little your project is, is to divide the entire output into digestible portions. This will be useful later on when planning the timeline, determining the resources you’ll require, and estimating the overall cost. 

Using a “Work Breakdown Structure” is one of the most well-liked methods for accomplishing this. Professional project managers frequently employ this technique while using formal project planning methodologies. Even if your job title isn’t “Project Manager,” you’ll still find it beneficial for smaller, less formal projects. These could involve directing a marketing campaign, relocating the office, or even planning a “away day” for the business. 

A work breakdown structure is a comprehensive summary of everything that must be delivered and all the tasks that must be performed in order to finish the project. It is depicted as a tree-structure in figure 1 below, with each deliverable or activity divided into other components. 

Format for the Work Breakdown Structure 

When creating a Work Breakdown Structure, you can employ a variety of techniques: 

The project is divided into the several activities it entails, such as management, needs analysis, purchasing, testing, installation, and training. -Process- or activity-oriented 

-Achievement-oriented: This type of project management breaks down the overarching goal into smaller, more manageable goals, such as acceptance of a system based on test plans and having properly trained users. 

Functional or product-oriented projects are those that are divided into the various components of the finished product, such as the hardware, software, data, and service elements. 

Different strategies are appropriate for various situations. The achievement-oriented approach is beneficial because it enables you to keep track of how your actions affect the final product of the project as a whole. When you need to structure work to make the most of the diverse skill sets that different employees have, a function-oriented approach might be helpful. Additionally, a process-oriented approach enables you to divide the work into conceptually smaller components that may each be dealt with separately. Other strategies work better in different contexts, and some combine them. 

Application of the Tool 

The steps below should be used to examine your project: 

1. Determine the strategy you wish to employ for your work breakdown. Process/activity, achievement, function/product-oriented, another method, or a combination of approaches are all acceptable structures. 

2. Dissect the project using this methodology. Then, further dissect it so that the lowest level displays precisely defined, doable work units. Try to limit the number of levels you construct to three or four, with ideally no more than nine items each level. You should attempt to avoid getting into too much depth while yet making sure that the Work Breakdown Structure is comprehensive. The ultimate amount of detail you go to will depend on the type of activities you will be assigning and the experience of the personnel you will be assigning the activities to. There is no way your work breakdown structure should consist of a list of one-hour tasks! 

3. Use a hierarchical numbering system, as shown in figure 2 below, to assign numbers to each element or activity if your project is sufficiently large or complex. This makes it possible for everyone to understand exactly which activity or milestone is being discussed in project reports. 

The Figure below shows a portion of a work breakdown structure. 

Major Points 

Any endeavour that succeeds must have careful planning. Additionally, defining the tasks that must be carried out at the planning phase is a smart way to create a Work Breakdown Structure.

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