Work breakdown structure

A work breakdown structure (WBS) is an elaboration of the project activities required to achieve the project objectives. A WBS defines the total work scope of the project. Each descending level represents an increasingly detailed definition of the project work.

A WBS:

WBS elements

A WBS has a tree structure and can include the following elements:
  • Iteration: Iterations are specific to Agile projects, and refer to time-boxed phases of the project lifecycle.
  • Summary task: A summary task is composed of a series of tasks. It is usually used to denote a project phase or iteration.
  • Task: A task is a single project activity and represents the lowest-level of work breakdown for a project deliverable.
  • Story: A story is a top-level work item that can be further broken down into tasks. It is used for theme-based planning and development.
  • Change requests: A change request tracks the requests for change during the course of the execution of a project. You can add tasks to a change request.
  • Issues: Issues are created during the execution phase of a project to communicate the nature of impending or actual problems for which no concrete solution has been proposed. You can add tasks to an issue.
  • Defects: Defects are used to record and track bugs and bug fixes. You can add tasks to a defect.

Each WBS element has attributes, such as start and finish dates, and duration. When you create a WBS, the default values are supplied for each attribute. You can modify the default attributes.

When you create a WBS, or import a project, ensure that a single WBS node does not contain more than 100 child elements since this can cause performance issues on Microsoft® Internet Explorer 7. When a single WBS element contains more than 100 child elements, the node is displayed in bold text in the WBS tree.


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