Project Management: Microsoft Project

 Work Breakdown Structure

According to the PMBOK® Guide, "the WBS is a deliverable-oriented hierarchical decomposition of the work to be executed by the project team, to accomplish the project objectives and create the required deliverables." In other words, it lists the project's deliverables and work packages. For this week, you will create a work breakdown structure (WBS) for the project you selected during Week 1.

Remember that the WBS starts with your major deliverables (that you stated in your scope management plan) at the highest level. The lower levels have the work package required to complete those deliverables. Review the textbook (and the PMBOK® Guide, if you have it) for some suggestions on how to create a WBS. From your work breakdown structure, develop a project task list with dependencies and add durations, using MS Project.

Develop the Work Breakdown Structure

• Your WBS should have a minimum of 100–150 line items in MS Project and be three levels deep.
• Make sure to use verb-object task names (for example, "Develop software").
• Enter tasks in MS Project.
• Create the predecessor relationships.
• DO NOT LINK SUMMARY TASKS OR ASSIGN RESOURCES!