Continued From Last Week

Creating a WBS
IN order to breakdown the project scope, you will need to understand the scope of the project management plan, the project scope statement and the requirement documentation. Failure to identify all the project requirements from the various stakeholders will cause a scope creep.

The scope creep can trigger scope changes, which can lead to the failure of the project. The technique required for creating the WBS is called scope decomposition. Using the scope decomposition, the WBS will start at the highest level. It is all about what is to be done. It is not concerned with how it will be done or who will do it. The lowest level of the decomposition is called work package. The work package is a deliverable that is decomposed to the lowest level where it is possible to comprehend all the tasks necessary to create the deliverable.

At this level, it is possible to identify, estimate, schedule, track and control all the activities necessary to build the work package. If the WBS does not have enough details and it is kept too high, estimating, tracking and controlling the schedule and cost performance become too tedious to perform. The component views of the project lack meaning because the lower level content is missing or too general to be reliable.

Example of a WBS – 4 Levels
A four levels WBS structure consisting of level 1, level 2, level 3 and level 4 hierarchies is described below.
Level 1: The level1 hierarchy is the highest level of the WBS. It shows the overall tasks of the project by complex, groups, units, or areas to meet the project objectives.
Level 2: Each complex or area or unit as shown in level 1 is subdivided to show further elements of the tasks.
Level 3: The level 2 activities are further broken down with more details of the works to be performed.
Level 4: The level 4 is the lowest level called the work package level. The tasks of this level are used to assign responsibilities, construct the schedule and track the project progress.

Consider the project to be a giant outline in which each lower level is a breakdown of the higher level. The items in the lower level constitute the next higher level. We do not worry about the sequence in which the work is to be performed when we do a WBS. That will be worked out in the project schedule. The main idea of doing a WBS is to capture the tasks.

Guideline for Creating a WBS
1. Stop breaking down the work when you reach the point where you can estimate the time and cost to the required degree of accuracy or when the work will take an amount of time equal to the smallest unit of time you want to schedule to. For instance, if you want to schedule to the nearest week, you break down the work to the point where the tasks takes one week to perform
2. The WBS should be created before creating the schedule. The WBS allows resources to be assigned and estimates of time and costs to be made and display the total scope of the job in a graphical format.
3. The WBS does not have to be symmetrical and all paths do not have to be broken down to the same level. The rule is to break down the work to a level sufficient to achieve the desired estimating accuracy. Engr. Obumeyan is a Chartered Chemical Engineer and is presently engaged as Consultant on the Abuja Light Rail Project.