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:
- Defines the hierarchy of deliverables
- Supports the definition of all work required to achieve an end
objective or deliverable
- Provides a graphical picture or textual outline of the project
scope
- Provides the framework for all deliverables across the project
life cycle
- Provides a vehicle for integrating and assessing schedule and
cost performance
- Provides association to the responsible stakeholders
- Facilitates the reporting and analysis of project progress and
status data
- Provides a framework for specifying performance objectives
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.