A Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) provides a systematic approach to documenting our scope. The WBS is a hierarchical decomposition of the total scope of work to be carried out by the project team to accomplish the project objectives and create the required deliverables.

The process of creating the WBS produces a detailed understanding of the deliverables of the project. Deliverables are decomposed into components and components are decomposed into subcomponents.

The WBS may be illustrated graphically or in an outline structure.

 

 
The WBS is typically deliverables based. However, it is not uncommon to see a WBS that is phase or process based. Even if a WBS is phase or process based, it should still have deliverables for each phase or process that trace back to the deliverables in your Project Scope Statement. For example, the process “Planning” produces the deliverable Project Management Plan.

The WBS must cover 100% of the scope of the project. The WBS can be used as a communication tool with our customer, our sponsor, and other key stakeholders to help us reduce risk on the project by ensuring a consistent understanding of the project outcome. Once everyone agrees that the WBS includes all of our deliverables, we can use the WBS as the scope baseline and as a basis for our planning processes.

Because the WBS is made up of deliverables, the WBS elements should be things – nouns.

There are four rules for decomposition:

 
 
The WBS elements will become summary tasks in your Microsoft Project schedule.
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