"The WPs may be organized in control accounts (CAs) based on the project organizational breakdown structure (OBS) and responsibility assignment matrix (RAM). A CA is a management control point where scope, budget, and schedule are integrated and compared to the EV for performance measurement".
Anybody provide a bit explanation of above, specifically linking CA with OBS and RAM, please? Saving Changes...
The WBS is a logical decomposition of work performed on a project. A control account is the lowest level or what PMI calls the WBS dictionary. Others call it the SOW (Statement of Work), narrative work statement, etc. In EVM, these are the tasks that include cost and schedule estimates.
The work is performed by organizations so the WBS is associated with the OBS to assign responsibility to the work that must be performed. By associating the work to the performing team, EVM not only shows the sum total of cost and schedule performance, but also the performance by team.
Often the WBS is broken down by the OBS. If not, the work has to be assigned to teams based on their responsibilities, therefor the RAM is used to associate work (WBS) to performing team (OBS). Saving Changes...
Thanks for the clarification. Linking OBS, WBS and RAM makes more sense now.
But Control Account (CA) is higher than Work Package (WP). I don't think we can name/refer them being WBS dictionary. I believe WBS dictionary being more of a descriptive version of WP only.
And I am on the same page with you regarding EVM being an integrated and a great methodology to measure PMB.
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1 reply by Sergio Luis Conte
May 21, 2022 5:39 AM
Sergio Luis Conte
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The control account is not part of the wbs dictionary.
Senior Projects Manager | Field & Marten AssociatesNew Westminster, British Columbia, Canada
Aziz
The Control Account (CA) is defined to the level required by the project manager to maintain control. A control account maybe contain one of more work packages.
If you define a control point, you assign this to a responsible person in the RAM or RACI Matrix.
Trying to get too precise with some of the terms is difficult because some come from accounting, some from systems engineering, and some like WBS came from systems engineering but were re-defined by PMI to fit their own vision. When you try and recombine terms like EVM and WBS which both came from the DoD in the 1960's and PMI changes the meaning of certain words, meanings get obscured.
What different people describe as a control account, a task, a WBS, and a WBS dictionary will all differ based on the way they are using them. At the very basic level though, control accounts are the lowest level of data you are managing (the level at which you control an account). What you call a task could be a sub-task in a chain of events such as Work Package Complete, Technical Specialist Reviews, Final Approval, or it could be each of those discretely scheduled.
Regardless of the terms used, you still need to know who is assigned ownership of the task, when it should be complete, and how much it will cost. That allows you to know not only if you are on plan, but who is responsible for variances from the plan. If you want to put that in a WBS dictionary, or the dictionary itself is more of a narrative and you have some other tool to log cost and schedule, that's up to how you use the data. Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
May 20, 2022 2:39 PM
Replying to Aziz Azzam
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Keith,
Thanks for the clarification. Linking OBS, WBS and RAM makes more sense now.
But Control Account (CA) is higher than Work Package (WP). I don't think we can name/refer them being WBS dictionary. I believe WBS dictionary being more of a descriptive version of WP only.
And I am on the same page with you regarding EVM being an integrated and a great methodology to measure PMB.
The control account is not part of the wbs dictionary.
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