| The Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is defined by | | | | requirements, Designing the new System, Coding, |
| A Guide to the Project Management Body of | | | | Testing and Going Live with the new System. Each of |
| Knowledge 3rd Edition (PMBOK Guide) as: | | | | these high level works can be further subdivided into |
| "A deliverable-oriented hierarchical decomposition of | | | | smaller activities to manage it better. There is no limit |
| the work to be executed by the project team to | | | | to which the work can be further subdivided. The last |
| accomplish the project objectives and create the | | | | level of work in such subdivision is the Work Package |
| required deliverables." | | | | and the whole structure is WBS. |
| The WBS is a decomposition of the project scope | | | | Some important points regarding WBS: |
| statement. It is a deliverables-oriented document that | | | | If any work is not part of |
| visualizes all the things the project will create. However, | | | | WBS, it is not part of the Project. |
| WBS is not the activity list. The WBS takes the | | | | WBS is created by the |
| project scope statement and breaks it down into the | | | | team |
| deliverables the customer is expecting from the | | | | The WBS is multi-level and |
| project. It organizes and catalogs the project | | | | the lowest level is called Work Package. |
| deliverables. | | | | The work package cannot |
| The smallest item in the WBS is called the work | | | | be subdivided further. |
| package. The process of creating the WBS should | | | | There are 3 reasons why WBS is used in Projects. |
| involve the project team and the project's key | | | | The first reason is that, it helps in defining the |
| stakeholders. The stakeholders should be involved in | | | | scope of the Project. The second reason for using |
| creating the WBS as this helps the stakeholders see | | | | WBS is to help with assigning responsibilities, resource |
| the depth of Project deliverables. | | | | allocation, monitoring the project, and controlling the |
| Let us take the example of a project that aims to | | | | project. Finally, it checks all the deliverables of the |
| develop a new core Banking Software. There would | | | | stakeholders and make sure there is no miss or |
| be various activities in this project like Finalizing | | | | overlap. |