Breaking Work into Task-Sized Chunks
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When managing projects, it is important to build a WBS -- a work breakdown structure. This article, the first in a three-part series, will explain why a WBS is important and show you how to build one. It is excerpted from chapter four of the book
Microsoft Project 2007: The Missing Manual, written by Bonnie Biafore (O'Reilly, 2007; ISBN: 0596528361). Copyright © 2007 O'Reilly Media, Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission from the publisher. Available from booksellers or direct from O'Reilly Media.
When you organize a simple activity like seeing a movie with friends, you probably don’t bother writing out the steps. You just call your friends, pick a movie, get tickets, and buy popcorn without a formal plan. However, for more complex projects—like preparing your income tax return or launching a new product line—identifying the work involved is key to planning how and when to get it done. For example, missing the April 15 deadline can cost you hundreds of dollars in penalties. That new product may make a profit only if you keep costs below $100,000 and get it on the shelves before Thanksgiving. At such times, cost, delivery dates, and other objectives are important.
That’s where a WBS (work breakdown structure) comes in. Carving up the project’s work into a hierarchy of progressively smaller chunks until you get to bite-sized pieces is the first step to figuring out how and when everything will get done. If you’re new to managing projects, don’t panic—you’ve built a WBS before. The movie example in the previous paragraph is actually a simple WBS. The structure of a WBS is much like the system of blood vessels in your body, with the aorta representing the entire project and the smaller blood vessels as progressively smaller chunks of the overall work at each level (summary tasks). The hoards of tiny capillaries that deliver blood to every part of your body correspond to the individual tasks (called work packages) at the bottom of the WBS, which are the smallest chunks of work that you assign to people to complete the project.
In this chapter, you’ll learn how to create a WBS that successfully communicates the work within a project. Equally important, you’ll learn how to tell when the WBS is broken down enough. The rest of the chapter helps you get your WBS into Microsoft Project, so you can proceed to constructing a project schedule as described in Chapter 6.
The fastest way to create a WBS is to construct it directly in Project, and this chapter shows you several ways to do just that. If you’re working alone, you can empty your brain into Project, or you can just as easily transcribe the results of collaborative WBS sessions. You can also build a WBS in Microsoft Word, and import the results into Project (in case you love working in Word, or teams submit individual Word documents for their portions of the project). Finally, you’ll also learn how to create documents that describe and support your project’s work packages.
Next: Identifying the Work to Be Done >>
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 This article is excerpted from chapter four of the book Microsoft Project 2007: The Missing Manual, written by Bonnie Biafore (O'Reilly, 2007; ISBN: 0596528361). Check it out today at your favorite bookstore. Buy this book now.
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