Definable-can be described and easily understood by project participants.A good WBS should exhibit the following characteristics: A well-designed WBS makes it easy to assign elements of the WBS to any project activity. Actions, on the other hand, may be difficult to predict accurately. Outcomes are the desired ends of the project, such as a product, result, or service, and can be predicted accurately. Here is a Work Breakdown Structure example:Ī well-designed WBS describes planned outcomes instead of planned actions. At each subsequent level, the children of a parent node collectively and exclusively represent 100% of the scope of their parent node. The first two levels of the WBS (the root node and Level 2) define a set of planned outcomes that collectively and exclusively represent 100% of the project scope.

Each descending level in the WBS represents an increasingly detailed description of the project deliverables. It is a hierarchical description of the work that must be done to complete the deliverables of a project. The Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is developed to establish a common understanding of project scope. All the work contained within the WBS is to be identified, estimated, scheduled, and budgeted. A WBS is the cornerstone of effective project planning, execution, controlling, monitoring, and reporting. A Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is a deliverable-oriented hierarchical decomposition of the work to be executed by the project team to accomplish the project objectives and create the required deliverables.

Types work breakdown structure wbs