Creating a Work Breakdown Structure(WBS)

Creating Work Breakdown Structure:

Definition:

A work breakdown structure, often abbreviated to WBS, is a tool that sorts the milestones and tasks of a project in a hierarchy, in the order they need to be completed. This is a helpful tool because it helps break down the sometimes intimidating challenges of a project into more manageable chunks. Big projects like publishing a report or organizing a conference seem a lot less daunting when the work required to get there is broken down step-by-step with a clear pathway from the beginning of the project to the end.

It makes it easier to understand all of the essential project tasks, such as estimating costs, developing a schedule, assigning roles and responsibilities, and tracking progress

Let's look at an example of a basic work breakdown structure. There are lots of different ways to design a work breakdown structure, but one common way is to create a tree diagram of project tasks.

Let's say that we're creating a work breakdown structure for the ByFaithTravels website launch.

• At the top of the diagram is the name of the project.
• The second level of our diagram breaks the project down into three milestones. These include securing design approval, developing the site and implementing user feedback.
• At the third level of the chart, we can see each of those milestones gets further broken down into a series of project tasks.

For example, tasks listed beneath your design approval milestone include mocking up designs and collecting feedback. This is a very simple example of a work breakdown structure. Here, we've only created a work breakdown structure for a new website, which is just one of the ByFaithTravels deliverables.

Keep in mind that in future project management roles, you'll likely create a WBS that outlines the tasks for an entire project. It's also important to know that while creating a work breakdown structure is a helpful exercise for visualizing the tasks of the project, you wouldn't typically include this type of diagram in your official project plan. Instead, you'd input the tasks identified through this exercise into a spreadsheet or your chosen work management software, where you can more easily assign owners to each task.

So after completing a work breakdown structure and organizing those tasks in a spreadsheet, a few things should be clearer to you.

• First, you should have a set of discrete project tasks that ladder up to each of your milestones. You and your teammates will know exactly what needs to happen to reach your first milestone and the milestones after that.
• Second, you're now in a good position to assign those tasks to members of the project team. Each person should have a clear understanding of the tasks they own and the order in which they need to complete them.

How to assign tasks:

Tasks are typically assigned according to a person's role in the project.

For example, in our ByFaithTravel Project scenario,

The web designer is assigned to the task of mocking up the initial website design, you are assigned to the task of reviewing that design and providing feedback, and the designer is assigned to the task of implementing your feedback.

A web developer will be assigned to the next task of developing the site itself. Sometimes, your team will have multiple teammates working in the same type of role. To assign tasks between two or more team members with the same roles, you might take into consideration each person's familiarity with the tasks at hand.

For example, if you have multiple web developers working on the new website, you might task one developer with creating the landing page and task the other developer with creating the "contact us" page.

When assigning tasks, you should also consider each teammate's workload. Think about how much time they're meant to be spending on the project compared to work outside the project that they may also be responsible for. It's important to keep everyone's workloads balanced. You'll want to make sure that a single teammate isn't assigned more work than others. You'll also want to make sure that no one is assigned more work than they can handle.

When people feel overloaded, the quality of their work may suffer or they might need more time to complete the number of tasks, putting the timeline and the overall project schedule at risk.

As the project manager, you will ensure that your teammates are clear on their assigned tasks. You can do this by assigning tasks with help from project management tools like Asana,

When you manage a project in Asana, you'll add tasks to represent actionable pieces of work needed to complete the project.

• As a best practice, it's good to start each task with a verb.
• For example, instead of just typing "website," make clear the task is to "mock up the website" or "add images to the website."
• Another thing to think about when assigning tasks is timeline.
• Be sure to add an assignee and a due date to each task so it's clear who's doing what by when.
• Finally, be sure to include as much detail surrounding the task as possible to avoid miscommunication.
• In Asana, you can click into the task details to add helpful information. Here, you can add a description, link to corresponding files or attachments, or even comment on the work related to the task.

There's so many benefits to assigning tasks, but the biggest one is that it frees you up to focus on managing a project.

This way, you can feel confident in the knowledge that your teammates are responsible for specific work. But there's also some less obvious benefits of assigning tasks.

Let's explore these more now. One less obvious benefit of assigning tasks is that it creates a sense of personal responsibility for members of the team. When you assign a teammate to a task, you enter into an agreement with that person that they'll own the task until it's completed.

Creating a sense of ownership for members of the team is important because it makes them feel more invested in the project. It also gives them space for personal growth. Plus, it supports your own skill-building as a manager who's a supportive delegator. And on top of that, it keeps your team motivated and invested in completing their work on time.

While each team member should have a sense of responsibility for their assigned task, a complete sense of ownership might feel overwhelming for some teammates. If that's the case, it's a good idea for a project manager to encourage teammates to support one another on their tasks. This is also great for building overall team rapport.