Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

The Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is a tool that defines a project and groups the project’s
discrete work elements in a way that helps organize and define the total work scope of the project.
A WBS element may be a product, data, a service, or any combination. WBS also provides the
necessary framework for detailed cost estimating and control along with providing guidance for
schedule development and control. Additionally, the WBS is a dynamic tool and can be revised
and updated as needed by the project manager.

What are the uses and purposes of Work Breakdown Structures?

Although often skipped in the planning process, a work breakdown structure or dictionary is a powerful
tool for finishing projects efficiently and on time. Here are some of the advantages and benefits of
creating a WBS:
 Provides a visual representation of all parts of a project
 Offers an ongoing view for management and team members into how the entire project is
progressing
 Defines specific and measurable outcomes
 Breaks the work into manageable chunks
 Provides a way to make successful experiences repeatable
 Sets a foundation for estimating costs and allocating human and other resources
 Ensures no overlap and no gaps in responsibility or resources
 Minimizes the chance of adding items outside the scope of work or forgetting a critical deliverable

In addition, organizations have found other benefits in using work breakdown structures. These benefits
can be realized through a specific project, but may also help improve the processes and culture of your
whole organization. They include:
 By taking into account each project’s WBS, the organization can quickly calculate the budget for
whole departments.
 Teams can determine project schedule and budget quickly.
 As the project progresses, teams can track specific sections of the work breakdown structure to
determine project cost performance and flag issues and problem areas in the organization.

A well-crafted work breakdown structure can keep your team humming along like a well-oiled machine
with these benefits:
 Improves productivity
 Helps project managers predict results based on various scenarios
 Helps with project organization
 Assists in describing the project scope to stakeholders
 Helps to distribute responsibilities
 Allows correct estimation of costs, risks, and time
 Increases communication
 Enables more creativity and brainstorming
 Focuses on end goals
  Organizes details
 Potentially prevents problems
 Addresses scheduling issues
 Helps manage risks
 Allocates tasks
 Gives teams flexibility
 Eliminates confusion
 Gives every team member clear task descriptions
 Helps write and support the statement of work
 Provides foundation for clear status report on project, since each work package is a measurable
unit

The Visual Advantage of Work Breakdown Structures

The work breakdown structure chart or dictionary easily displays project details and status. To present
your work, you have a few options. The classic WBS view is the tree structure diagram, but you can also
use numbered lists or tables. An outline is one of the easiest ways to represent a work breakdown
structure. Listed below are other types of formats that are useful for different types of projects.

During the project, the elements in the work breakdown structure can be color-coded to indicate work
status: for example, on-target could be noted in green, late would be in red, at-risk shows up as yellow,
and completed is signified by blue. Color coding can help you identify schedule risks at a glance.

WHAT ARE THE KEY COMPONENTS OF A WORK BREAKDOWN STRUCTURE?

A reliable, useful work breakdown structure or dictionary should gather the critical elements of a project,
along with its timeline, cost, and resources. The most helpful WBS plans contain these components:
 Identification of which organization, department, or individual is responsible for each specific work
piece
 The scheduled start and end dates
 Required resources
 Estimated cost of the project
 Charge numbers
 Contract details, requirements, and milestones
 Protocol for quality control, requirements, and standards
 Technical information and resources needed to achieve desired results

At a higher level, the WBS can also serve directional and organizational roles. A thorough WBS plan
can act to:
 Help human resources manage team assignments
 Manage the schedule and determine the project timeline
 Manage and measure the quality
 Anticipate enterprise environmental factors
  Identify organizational process assets
 Track version history
 Establish dependencies
 Track the overall progress of a project

Who uses Work Breakdown Structures?

Business project managers’ use work breakdown structures to ensure an organized, visible view of their
projects and their components. These teams can also benefit from using work breakdown structures
also to agency and corporate settings, other fields rely on work breakdown structures:
 Commercial Project Planners: A WBS can capture all the moving pieces of a large commercial
project — not just the main company’s projects and team members’ tasks, but those of vendors
and subcontractors. It can also capture dependencies for getting necessary permits, tracking
progress with governmental approvals, and more.
 Event Planners: A WBS breaks down a complex event into tasks and subtasks, and assigning
those helps keeps multiple teams moving forward on tight deadlines.
 Residential and Construction Project Managers: In addition to the tasks and team members
involved in a regular commercial project, construction project managers can use a WBS to track
stages in utility work, zoning approvals, environmental approvals, and more.
 Scope Planning Managers: When an agency takes on a new client, the resource planners and
directors need to have at least a rough view of the project timeline and resources needed before
assigning a budget and scope to the project.
 Software Developers: Software developers often already break down their projects into phases or
stages. A WBS that includes other organizational members helps developers stay on top of the
most important deliverables first, while giving visibility to the rest of the team.
 System Engineers: System engineers are charged with owning the big picture of their setups and
keeping them running and updated for optimal performance. A WBS gives them an organic
document that captures the smallest details that map to bigger systems operations. Knowing they
have that information at their fingertips can ease their minds by letting them focus on the larger
operational questions.
Within an organization that already has a project plan or work breakdown plan in place over the long
term; work breakdown structures are helpful for a predecessor on a project to see how the project has
progressed during their absence. For successors on a project, the WBS helps them see both what
worked and what did not in the project’s earlier days and to track dependencies and their outcomes. In
short, anyone in an oversight role who needs to plan for the division of labor on a project can benefit
from using a work breakdown structure.

Preparing a WBS
In preparing a WBS there are a number of steps that need to be taken to make sure the WBS
developed will help manage your project.
1. Identify final project products necessary for achieving project success. The WBS should
assist the project manager in developing a clear vision of the end product
2. Identify the major deliverables necessary for project success.
 3. Incorporate additional levels of detail until management requirements for managing and
controlling the project are met.
4. Review and refine the WBS until the stakeholders agree with the level of project planning
and reporting.
In developing a WBS, one must realize that there are multiple ways to develop a WBS for any
given project. Some ways might be better than others, but the two most important item to
remember are that the WBS must contain all approved scope and the Project Manager must
develop the WBS to reflect the way he/she intends to manage the project.
Other items to consider when developing a WBS are:
• Reporting requirements
• Size of project
• Resource executing the work (contractors vs. in-house)
• Complexity of the project

WBS: Structure
Example:
The ACME Housing Corporation, which you own, has been contracted to build its first house. You
want to be able to manage your projects effectively and efficiently, so you charge your project
managers to develop an appropriate WBS. You decide to manage the project by the individual
tasks necessary to complete the house.
You hope that this is the first of many houses that ACME will build, so you start the WBS with
ACME in the highest position, or Level 1. Accordingly, Level 1 is given a WBS code of 1. You
assign the WBS code of 1 to the highest level because all future projects (houses) will be
summarized at Level 1.
NOTE: For ease of explanation, our example will assume the following:
• Design is complete
• All permits issued
• All Material ordered
• Inspection happens

With Level 1 established, you can begin to complete the WBS. But what should the next level be?
The logical next level for ACME is the project level. Level 2 is the level for each individual project,
or house, that ACME undertakes. As the chart shows below, Level 2 is identified at the project
level: House.
Appropriately, the code for Level 2 corresponds to Level 1. In this case, the code is 1.1.
Now the WBS for the housing project is complete, right? Actually, no, the WBS is not complete. At
this point you determine that you want to divide the work into the major elements needed to build a
house. You choose to divide Level 3 into six elements: concrete, framing, plumbing, electrical,
interior and roofing. You realize that these are both major deliverables and milestones for
managing the project. They also enable you to get to your goal of managing the project by task.
Notice the WBS codes at level 3. Each is unique to the project and starts with the WBS code from
the level above (1→1.1→1.1.1).

The ACME WBS is taking shape, but it does not quite define the project at a level that shows
needed tasks for completion. To do this, one more level needs to be included.
Level 4 of the WBS will enable us to manage the project as desired. All of our contractors fit into
specific elements at level 4, and so do all specific departments. As with the previous Levels, note
the WBS codes that have been assigned to the tasks and their relationship to the previous Level.
What do you think? Is the WBS complete? Does it enable the manager to manage at the task
level?
After a review to make sure that only approved scope is included, our WBS is complete. It does
include the necessary components to manage the project by task.
Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) Tree
The graphical structure of the WBS is an easy way to identify the project components and
relationships of those components; however, the WBS can be displayed in another format as well:
the Tree format. Both formats are acceptable. The graphical format is at times easier to
understand, but can take up considerable space in a report. The tree is not as easy to understand
but is more easily incorporated into a report format.
Note the WBS codes and the structure of the Levels in the Tree format mirror the graphical format.
The content has not changed; only the way the content is presented has changed.

WBS Dictionary
Once the WBS is complete, the WBS dictionary needs to be the next item developed. The WBS
dictionary is a narrative documentation of the effort needed to accomplish all work defined in the
WBS. The WBS dictionary is developed for the lowest level element in the WBS only.

Sample of WBS Dictionary

As the Project Manager and Team discuss and define the WBS and address how many levels and
how much detail should go into the WBS, the Project Team should create a WBS Dictionary to
capture task characteristic information, including task names, work products, level of effort,
resources, dependencies, and others. The WBS Dictionary should be consistent with the WBS.
The information captured in the WBS Dictionary will help the Project Manager to later develop the
detailed baseline schedule. The WBS Dictionary may be in table or excel format.

WBS #: 1.1.1 Task: Create Plan

Est. Level of 40 hrs Owner: Project Manager
Effort:
Resources Subject Matter Experts Work Products: MS Project Plan
Needed:
Description of Development of a detailed project plan that lists all key resources, tasks,
Task: milestones, dependencies, and durations.
Input:  Approved Project Charter
 SMEs
Dependencies:  Approval of Budget
Risk:  Changes to IT Apps plans and deliverables
 IT Apps implementation releases, which conflict with implementation
WBS #: 1.1.2 Work Item: Make Budget
Est. Level of 16 hrs Owner: Project Manager
Effort:
Resources CFO, CIO, Executive Sponsor Work Products: ITPR
Needed:
Description of Development and documentation of the project budget based on plan and
Task: resources.
Input:  Approved Project Charter
 SMEs
Dependencies:  Approval of Project Charter
Risk:  Changes to IT Apps plans and deliverables
 IT Apps implementation releases which conflict with implementation
WBS Dictionary - Table Format Example

WBS FIELDS
Est.
WBS Work
Task Description of Task Owners Level of
# Products
Effort
1 PLANNING All task management and
management activities
1.1 Plan and Roll-up Task Project N/A
Supervise Manager
1.1 Create Plan Development of WBS, work WBS, Project 40 hrs
.1 package identification, schedule WBS Manager
formulation, staffing projection, Dictionary,
resource estimation. Followed by MS Project
development of a detail project Plan
plan that list all the key
resources, task, milestones,
dependencies, and duration.
1.1 Create Budget Development and documentation ITPR Project 40 hrs
.2 of the project budget based on Manager
plan and resources
1.1 Prepare Development of disbursement Purchase CFO 40 hrs
.3 Disbursement / process for the project includingOrders,
Reconciliation acceptance/approval forms. Deliverable
Product
Acceptance
Form
1.1 Coordinate Ongoing planning activities for Meeting Project 8
.4 Activities the project including weekly Minutes Manager hrs/week
meetings
WBS Dictionary - Excel Format Example
Organization Breakdown Structure (OBS)
Now that our WBS is developed, the appropriate resources and responsibilities need to assign.
The first step in doing this is developing the Organizational Breakdown Structure (OBS) for the
project. The OBS indicates the organizational relationships and is used as the framework for
assigning work responsibilities. Below is an example of the OBS for the ACME house building
project. The OBS is structured by Responsible Department and then by Performing Department at
the lowest level. This Performing Department level is where the responsibility and resource
needed to accomplish the project will be assigned.
With the relationships and responsibilities defined, the second and final step is to merge the WBS
and OBS. Take a look on the next page.

Responsibility Assignment Matrix (RAM)

Merging the WBS and OBS, the project manager creates a Responsibility Assignment Matrix
(RAM). The RAM displays the lowest level of both the WBS and the OBS. The integration
identifies specific responsibility for specific project tasks. It is at this point that the project manager
develops control accounts or work package.

This is what the RAM may look like on the ACME house construction project.
Below is part of the RAM for the ACME housing project.
– The lowest level of the WBS appears across the top
– The lowest level of the OBS appears on the vertical axis
An “X” appears at the intersection of the WBS task and OBS personnel. The “X” defines the
specific performing department (from the OBS) assigned to complete a task (from the WBS).
To better understand the RAM, consider the ACME housing project.
The OBS specifies Mr. Sites and the carpentry department as responsible for framing the exterior
walls. Therefore, in the RAM, an X appears at the cross-section between the task, framing the
exterior walls, and the responsible party, Mr. Sites. Additionally, Mr. Sites is also responsible for
framing the interior walls and installing the roofing trusses.

Alternatively, hours and dollars may be used in the RAM rather than an “X”. Using our ACME
House example, the “X” was replaced with the hours needed to complete the task. Now we see
that Mr. Sites has 300 hours to frame the exterior walls, 250 hours to frame the interior walls and
175 hours to install the roofing trusses.
Samples
Level 1
Determine the major deliverables or products to be produced.
Level 2
Divide each of these major deliverables into its component deliverables in the same
manner.
Level 3
Divide each of these work pieces into its component parts.
 Republic of the Philippines
Southern Leyte State University
Main Campus, Sogod, Southern Leyte

WRITTEN REPORT

IN

CONSTRUCTION COST ENGINNERING

TOPIC: ‘‘WORK BREAKDOWN STRUCTURE’’

Submitted by:
Amad Agnies
Buhion Salome
Eway Ericson
Gildo Jaquilyn
Juson Janny
Lora Alberto Jr.
Paħa Rogie Boy
Quintero Arvin
Quiħo Flora Mae
Salazar Harold
Tajora Alex

Submitted to:
Engr. Ryan A. Macuto