Chapter 6 Work Breakdown Structure Ideas

When the project is big, we need to break it into pieces to balance cost-schedule-quality equally. “The work breakdown structure (WBS) is the tool for breaking down a project into its component parts.” (Verzuh, p. 101)
Building a WBS helps to provide a detailed illustration of project scope, monitor progress, create accurate cost and schedule estimates, and build project teams.
WBS has two tasks; summary tasks and work packages. Summary tasks are a summarization of the subordinate work packages, so it is not actually executed. The work packages are the ones that are actually executed.
What are the steps to provide a guideline to developing a useful WBS?
Step one: Begin at the top.
You list the major deliverables or products.
Step two: Name all the tasks required to produce deliverables
When it is hard to list all the detailed tasks, it is time to invite more team members, with diverse skills, into the planning process.
Step tree: How to organize the WBS
Different ways of organizing work package may emphasize different aspects of a project. And when organize the WBS, every summary task should be meaningful to some stakeholder because the purpose of summary tasks on the WBS is for communication, or visibility.