How to Create a Work Breakdown Structure in 5 Steps

Your WBS  -Work Breakdown Structure-  often just a part inside of a Gantt chart, can make or break your project,

• It can make or break your timeline
• It can make or break  your project budget
• It can make or break achieving your project goals.

because when you don't have a Work Breakdown Structure you cannot allocate any resources like money and time and not track any work progress.

Skipping the Work Breakdown Structure  means you start your project planning without  a clearly defined scope:

Be aware of that any   project with an undefined scope can lead to the inclusion of unnecessary tasks and activities, leading to scope creep, delays, and budget overruns

1. What is a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)?

A WBS is a structured breakdown of all the project work into manageable pieces. A WBS is a visual structure of the scope of work.

The WBS is the answer to the question:

A Work Breakdown Structure is a visual tool of all tasks ( deliverables, activities, elements, work packages) that need to be done in order to achieve the project goals.

The best WBS is a visual map of the entire scope of work in a structured way.

You can think of the Work Breakdown structure as your  GPS-System for your project deliverables:

G Goals

P Phases

S Structure

GOAlLS - deliverables need to be focused on achieving the goals so we need to know them frist

PHASES- Do we know proven phases or steps we need to take to achieve the project goals? The project results are in the future so it makes sense to include all steps necessary to get us to the finish line from where we are enow to where we want to be.

STRUCTURE How can we structure all work packages, deliverables and activities of our project in an easy to manage way. 

2. Why is the Work Breakdown Structure so important?

Here are 3 typical situations why you want to create a WBS:

1. Your intention is to estimate the overall project costs so you don't run out of the budget
2. Your intention is to delegate work to team members or outsource work packages
3. You want to be able to track work progress and make sure it is done.

You`ll need the WBS to:

• determine the resources required to accomplish each task.
• estimate the time we will need to accomplish a tasks
• show clearly to the client what is in the scope of work and what not
• hire the right experts for the tasks that need to be done in order to achieve the objectives of the project
• create a plan showing the dependencies(Pert chart) and calculating  the critical path
• overview the entire scope of work
• minimize project risks

In a nutshell, the WBS is the foundation for planning the project time and budget and for tracking any work progress.

3. How to Create a Work Breakdown Structure?

 Here is a 5 Step process on how to create a WBS. Work Breakdown Structure:

You can download a PDF WBS Guide here: Click here

Step 1: Define the project objectives

It is important to be specific and concise in defining the project objectives to avoid confusion and misinterpretation.  Be clear on the overall project outcome and goals.

This is the G in our GPS system

Step 2: Identify the project's high-level phases 

This is only valid if someone has been doing similar projects before. You may ask some experts to save time and not reinvent the wheel.

Here are some questions to help you get started:

• What is the overall road map to achieve the goal?
• Is there a proven roadmap to achieve the goal for such type of project or is this your very first project of a kind?
• Where are your right now and where do you want to be?
• Do you work in sprints and see only the next milestone?
• Who has knowledge about such a type of project?

 This is the P in our GPS system

 Step 3: Brainstorm all activities and tasks that need to be done

Here is what you want to do if you are in doing it physically:

Get a bunch of sticky notes and

1. in the first round write just 

• all the objects related to the finished product f( or a product development plan)
• or all the functions  related to the  service - activities (for an activity or function-oriented plan)

2. in the second  round add to each object an action word in the past tense so that you create a deliverable

Object: Truck.  + Function: Rent = Deliverable. Trucj rented               

 if you want to have all deliverables in the past tense so that you can track the task is done

This  WBS development process can be done easily with digital sticky notes.

We like to use Miro whiteboards without any templates.

Open the whiteboard and start creating a WBS with digital sticky notes. I like to start and invite experts to such a sticky note session.

Here is a  draft of our Miro Board WBS for the Project Plan Academy

The beauty is we can all sit in our offices and create such a Work Breakdown Structure together in a team just by sharing the  MIRO board link.

Additionally, to teaching how to create a WBS with Miro, we provide our client's templates for creating and presenting your Work Breakdowns Structure with Google spreadsheet,s Powerpoint, and Canva.

Step 4: Structure  your  WBS

 This is the S in our GPS system for creating a structure and organizing all deliverables and tasks into a structure that makes sense.

You may start with this  if you know the top-down structure of your WBS

Define the 5-7 top deliverables  and add all tasks that need to be done in order to create that deliverable

Breakdown  all tasks into smaller tasks until you have a terminal element

Think of your WBS as a tree with a lot of branches

We like to start with a mindmap 

 And add all tasks and activities that we have on our sticky notes to a category.

This will help us to check if inside the WBS

• We have or not have any duplicates
• all necessary tasks, activities, and deliverables work packages  are included 
• The whole scope of the project is reflected
• All objectives are met

For Product development, you may consider starting with an object-oriented WBS to make sure you have all components

This is great for developing products of all kinds in the beginning to get a quick overview of all components.

For batching repeating tasks, you may try this function-oriented WBS

If you have experience and a playbook with proven sequences you may use  the phase-oriented WBS and 

 The deliverables are always written with a noun and a verb in the past tense. You may be more specific but keep it short.

Organizing and visualizing the activities is like creating a vision board for your project.

The Visual map of our Work Breakdown structure will help us to 

have a clear "vision board"  of our project scope and all the tasks we need to manage,

communicate the scope of the project to clients, stakeholders, and our team

access our intuition to  identify missing pieces, risks, and uncertainties

Step 5: Review and refine the WBS

Ensure that the WBS accurately reflects the project scope and objectives. The WBS should be reviewed by all stakeholders to ensure that it is comprehensive and complete.

• The WBS should be detailed enough to provide a clear understanding of what needs to be accomplished, but not so detailed that it becomes overwhelming to manage.
• In the beginning, you may want to identify the top level only and ask experts to provide the details for accomplishing the deliverables,
• In the first phase, you want to minimize the risks of underestimating the project budget
• In the second phase, you want to make sure everybody understands what is meant by being responsible for a work package
• In the third phase, you want to have a detailed plan so that you can track the work progress and the time and money spent.

4. Tips for creating a  successful WBS

 Here are some general tips to make sure your WBS will help you to show the real scope of work, to be manageable, and helps you to manage the budget and time, and people.

• Involve all stakeholders in the WBS creation process
• Keep the WBS simple and easy to understand
• Use a consistent numbering and naming convention for components
• Ensure that the WBS accurately reflects the project scope and objectives
• Regularly review and update the WBS to reflect changes in the project.

What is the best level of detail required for the WBS? 

In different stages, of planning your WBS u will have different levels of details

Remember:

• Don't try to make the WBS for your project t perfect just start and see how your project evolves and adjust it. If you do similar projects you can use the WBS and create a playbook so that you can minimize project risks. 

Before we go...

We hope you created a great Work Breakdown structure that you can’t wait to share with your team and other stakeholders! Just remember to:

• Pick a top-level hierarchy and break down complex tasks
• Describe your deliverables with a verb in the past tense and a noun
• Choose the best level of detail for your work packages
• Invite experts and consultants to collaborate and review

What exciting new WBS did you come up with for your business?

Grab your free Guide on How to create a WBS and watch a short video here you can see the WBS live.

Click here.