Chris McLoonTransformation Portolio Analyst| Sydney WaterParramatta, Nsw, Australia
I am responsible for Methodology Governance in my organisation and I am seeking feedback on what constitutes "good practice" in Work Breakdown Structures.
I believe that the WBS is a 'living' document that should represent the decomposed scope of a project throughout the life of the project - not just a point in time artefact to build the initial Dependency/Network Diagram to create the project schedule.
There is a different opinion in my organisation that once the Schedule has been created, then any changes to scope and or constraints can be managed within the Schedule, and that because the schedule is so big (1000+ tasks) then it is an unreasonable overhead to have to manage this in two places (WBS, then schedule).
I have difficulty in agreeing with this as I believe that impact assessment of Change requests would need to be reflected in the WBS, then assessed relative to the available resources, then updated in the schedule.
I would appreciate your thoughts.
Cheers
Chris Saving Changes...
Sort By:
Imran ManirSenior Project ManagerBurton On Trent, United Kingdom
Hi Chris, correct me, but you appear to be suggesting that an impact analysis of proposed changes must be undertaken against a WBS and the actual schedule? For a project manager, they would have to manage both the schedule and the WBS as two separate products? Is this what you are alluding to?
Thanks Saving Changes...
Wai Mun KooPMO Director| Intergraph PP&MSingapore, Singapore
I would say that the project manager needs to maintain both the WBS and schedule up to date and the links between them as well. Saving Changes...
Jim BlumIT Project Manager| State of Wa. Department of HealthTumwater, Wa, United States
I say, it depends. It depends on the size of project, methodology and your organizational culture. If keeping the WBS aligned with the schedule makes sense, do it. However, if updating the WBS is not adding value and doesn't fit, then don't worry about it.
For example, you may not be adding any value by updating the WBS for a small project with a small team where the schedule includes milestones that reflect the deliverables from the WBS. On the other hand, if your organization always updates the WBS and re-uses artifacts on future projects, you would benefit from keeping the WBS updated. As you can tell, I am not a fan of process for the sake of process but rather do what works for you on your project within your organization.
Saving Changes...
Chris McLoonTransformation Portolio Analyst| Sydney WaterParramatta, Nsw, Australia
Imran
I am suggesting that in order to do an impact assessment for a scope related change, you would need to update the WBS to add/update/remove scope items, then recast the network diagram, than update the schedule.
This would only apply to medium/large projects (>$1M)
Thanks
Chris Saving Changes...
Chris McLoonTransformation Portolio Analyst| Sydney WaterParramatta, Nsw, Australia
Jim, Wai
Thanks for your comments.
I agree with Jims pragmatic approach for small projects where the labour resource estimates are circa $1M, nut where labour costs are estmated around $5m, I believe that the impact has to start at the WBS.
Cheers
Chris Saving Changes...
Imran ManirSenior Project ManagerBurton On Trent, United Kingdom
Thanks for the clarification Chris. Any change must be assessed against scope to understand it’s true impact in terms of “what” will be done. What follows is scheduling. Dependencies and the critical path are reviewed and resources assigned as part of the scheduling process to ensure the “what” can be delivered.
Understandably, managing task heavy schedules requires time and can be complex. However, to ensure that tasks are not undertaken for the sake of activity but for delivering what is required, it’s important to manage a schedule against a valid, up to date WBS. Perhaps promoting the value this approach offers may help others understand this?
Saving Changes...
Great question(s): In my opinion, WBS and Schedule are connected from the beginning, (RFP to Project Management Plan). At which time you should have a (process) in place: Meetings / Metrics / Configuration Management and Documentation Control to accommodate immediate ripple effect on both. If making changes or implementing new schedule and cost requirements is (overwhelming) its time to break some of the plan up, re-allocate some capital and resources, and complete the job. Saving Changes...
I tend to agree with Wai and all those who are promoting WBS and Schedule both have to be maintained. Naturally, Schedule will always depend upon the WBS and WBS updates should be the ones according t which activity list is updated, network diagram is adjusted and after correcting the estimates, new schedule is established. The whole cycle would be revised, not only the schedule. Saving Changes...
Jayarajan NanooCEO| P3M SOLUTIONS & SERVICESDelhi, Delhi, India
Beyond the Structure of the WBS, it is the WBS dictionary which is the strongest foundation for managing projects. The maintenance of the WBS, and its updates as the planning goes through the various other elements like scheduling, cost estimates/budgets, quality information, procurement /contract details, risk identifiable to the work packages, delegated organizational units etc. is very crucial in simplifying the complexity of projects and it serves as an excellent knowledge repository. The Scope of the project gets progressively by elaborated as you capture more details into the WBS Dictionary.Any change in scope has to get reflected into the WBS dictionary before one can go ahead with the schedule or cost updates in plan Saving Changes...
