A Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is a fundamental project management technique for defining and organizing the total scope of a project, using a hierarchical tree structure. The first two levels of the WBS (the root node and Level 2) define a set of planned outcomes that collectively and exclusively represent 100% of the project scope. At each subsequent level, the children of a parent node collectively and exclusively represent 100% of the scope of their parent node. A well-designed WBS describes planned outcomes instead of planned actions. Outcomes are the desired ends of the project, and can be predicted accurately; actions comprise the project plan and may be difficult to predict accurately. A well-designed WBS makes it easy to assign any project activity to one and only one terminal element of the WBS.
A question to be answered in the design of any WBS is when to stop dividing work into smaller elements. (This is the level of granularity.) If a WBS terminal elements are defined too broadly, it may not be possible to track project performance effectively. If a WBS terminal elements are too granular, it may be inefficient to keep track of so many terminal elements, especially if the planned work is in the distant future. A satisfactory tradeoff may be found in the concept of progressive elaboration which allows WBS details to be progressively refined before work begins on an element of work. One form of progressive elaboration in large projects is called rolling wave planning which establishes a regular time schedule for progressive elaboration. In reality, an effective limit of WBS granularity may be reached when it is no longer possible to define planned outcomes, and the only details remaining are actions. Unless these actions can be defined to adhere to the 100% Rule, the WBS should not be further subdivided. (As CapitalofIndustryGuy would say, “Oookeeey.”)
+ Big Star – Thirteen (I love just about every version of this song. But I like the real thing the best.)
+ A wasteful sandwich = LIVERWURST. Because it’s fabulous, with pickles and mayo on whole wheat, but after one or two it tastes like throw-up kinda. Then the rest of the meat(?) sits in the back of the fridge until you throw it out embarrassed. But in the meantime, it tastes like childhood love, like goat gut soup, like cannibal on rye with onions, like DQ tacos, like what only you yourself know of the peculiar charms and taste of a thing, like fragile heaven. I figured if I was going to teach myself ganttware today, I’d eat what it is encouraging me to and affording me in squandered grocery money and memory, in this case of DmS being able neither to swallow it nor spit it out. (I killed it too, tandem oddly as per usual.)
