Becoming Distinguished with Your Project

Camilo is a project manager with a broad understanding of the profession as a means to bring benefits to the community. He has experience working as part of the EPC and owner interest in industrial and IT projects. He has over 12 years of experience working in the O&G industry.

  Scope Management   Work Breakdown Structures (WBS)  

It’s common to use a work breakdown structure at the start of a project. But many project managers use it as just another requisite to get their project charters approved. Therefore, it’s hardly seen during project development—and seldom at its end.

The Project Management Institute has defined the triple constraint of a project as scope, time and cost. The latter two have had their importance consolidated in job positions, software tools and several books; the same has not happened with scope (Buchtik, 2010). This article will provide tips on how to use concepts of scope definition in order to perform a distinguished project.

First, some definitions will be shared in order to set a common jargon. Then, the common problems that project managers have with current scope definition tools will be reviewed and contrasted with the benefits gained through the use of a distinguished tool. Finally, some guidelines on the process of creating a distinguished WBS will be provided.

I will highlight the importance of having a clear purpose and intention for work performed—rather than on the activities performed—to generate the WBS. Through this differentiation, an improved deliverable can be evolved, one that is valuable to the project during its entire lifecycle.

Definitions
In order to have a clear…

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