WBS with Remote Teams

Work Breakdown Structures (WBS)

Jayson Read Project Manager Eden Prairie, Mn, United States

Has anyone had to do a WBS identification session with team members that are remote? What did you use? I'm considering a Live Meeting/Webex with Visio but how much time do you spend messing around with the tool? I really like using sticky notes on the wall because it's more tangible and for the initial identification, it helps get the ideas rolling but near impossible for remote sessions, I would think.

Any thoughts or ideas would be MUCH appreciated!

Posted: Sep 13, 2011 10:09 AM

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Darren Kosa Planning & Controls Contractor Hampshire, United Kingdom

Hi Jayson,

I have to agree with you, Visio is pretty cumbersome for an online collaboration.

Have you thought about Mind Mapping S/W? Post-Its for the new millennium.

Regards,

Darren Kosa

Posted: Sep 13, 2011 1:02 PM

Wai Mun Koo PMO Director| Intergraph PP&M Singapore, Singapore

Jayson,

You might want to take a look at Pencil, an opensource alternative for Visio.

However, in order to address your needs for online collaboration just like the sticky notes, you might want to take a look at the following two applications.

http://flowchart.com/
http://www.lucidchart.com/

Posted: Sep 13, 2011 1:39 PM

Russell Geake Project Management Consultant| Deciduous Partners Ltd Lostwithiel, Cornwall, United Kingdom

If you want to remove complexity, go "old skool" and just write a simple document ...here's a good example from PM Docs which you could obviously adapt to meet your specific WBS system.

http://www.projectmanagementdocs.com/templ...20Structure.pdf

Alternatively, use what you would do with post-its to create an animated powerpoint (or similar).

(Wai Mun Koo - how did you manage to get a hyperlink to work?)

Russell

Posted: Sep 14, 2011 4:06 AM

Wai Mun Koo PMO Director| Intergraph PP&M Singapore, Singapore

Russell, you need to encode your link in anchor tags (<a></a> in HTML). For example, to produce the Pencil link in my post below, I would need to write the following,

<a href="http://pencil.evolus.vn/">Pencil</a>

See how the word 'Pencil' is encoded within the two tags <a></a>. Just place the URL within the quote symbols after the href= and you will be able to create the link.

Posted: Sep 14, 2011 1:29 PM

Josh Nankivel Engineering Project Manager| Apple Sioux Falls, Sd, United States

Mind mapping! In my view it's the only way to go with virtual teams. I have just done WBS structured lists in Excel too, which can also be effective.

Try out XMind - the free version is fully functional. It makes it easy and painless to do a WBS on the fly as you go.

Josh Nankivel
pmStudent.com

Posted: Sep 16, 2011 11:05 AM

Naomi Caietti Senior Project Manager | ePMO | Higher Education | Healthcare & IT| Linkedin.com/In/NaomiCaietti

Jayson:
Here is a great discussion on the do and don'ts of mindmapping and how it might help you be more productive.

http://www.gantthead.com/blog/Project-Management-2.0/1406/

Enjoy!

Posted: Sep 16, 2011 3:19 PM

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WBS with Remote Teams

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