Work Breakdown Structure

May 07, 2007 Posted by Omer Yesil Today we are going to develop Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) for the LRH Products trade show. But before the development I would like to give brief information about the WBS.

Today we are going to develop Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) for the LRH Products trade show. But before the development I would like to give brief information about the WBS.

The first thing to do in project planning process is defining the projects objective (Gido & Celements, 2006). The project objective should be very clean and understandable by the customer. The objective of the trade show project is to make the LRH products to ready for the trade show in 10 weeks within the specified budget.

The second step in project planning process is to determine the work activities and the elements. For small sized projects, we can determine the work activities and the elements by doing meetings with the project team members. But for the complex projects, another method is used; this method is called Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). As a definition, the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is a hierarchical description of all the work that must be done to meet the needs of the customer (Ohio State University, 2004).

WBS breaks down all the elements, activities and responsibilities into small pieces which can be managed easily. There is no any specific application that can be used for WBS; we can use MS Project, MS Excel, MS Word, MS Power Point, or any similar application that has simple designing features. There is no any standard WBS design, two different project teams might create two different WBS designs for the same project. We should also know that WBS is not a project schedule. It doesnt show dependencies, activity durations or resource responsibilities (University of Colorado, 2007).

Project managers and the project core team are the actors of a Work Breakdown Structure development. There are two different approaches that can be used to develop WBS by the project team (Ohio State University, 2004): 1. Top-down approach: In the top-down approach, we should be very clear about the goal of the project, and we should break down the project goal into deliverables, and determine the activities. The last step is the breakdown the deliverables into the activities. 2. Bottom-up approach: In this approach; . The entire project team agrees to the first-level breakdown. . The project team is divided into as many groups as there are first-level activities. . Each divided group creates the list to complete the specified first-level activities.

. One of the team members identifies an activity and tells to the other group members. If they agree on the identified activity, it is written on a slip of paper and put in the middle of the table. The process continues until to finish all the activities and the new ideas. . In the next step, the group sorts the written slips into activities in a relation. . The group works are finished after completing list of the activities and reporting these to the entire project planning team.

I used the first method, top-down approach, for the LRHs trade show project. Also as a design tool I used MS PowerPoint because.

References

Gido, J., & Celements, J. P. (2006). Microsoft Project. In Successful Project Management (pp. 106,107,108). Mason, OH: Thomson.

Ohio State University. (2004, 08 02). Introduction to the WBS. Retrieved 05 07, 2007, from Ohio State University: http://oit.osu.edu/projmanage/PDF_files/P_WBS_1.00.pdf

University of Colorado. (2007). Work Breakdown Structure. Retrieved 05 07, 2007, from University of Colorado: http://leeds.colorado.edu/uploadedFiles/Centers/Business_Intergration_Center/Resources/WBS% 20Frame.doc

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/74649392/Free-Work-Breakdown-Schedule-Template

Trade Show Project Plan

May 14, 2007Posted by Omer Yesil
Now, we have the base components to complete the project plan for the LRHs trade show. Ive covered the objective, WBS (Work Breakdown Structure), Responsibility Matrix, Gantt Chart and the Project Cost under the presentation. I used MS Excel 2003 and MS Project 2003 as project tools.

Now,

we

have

the

base

components

to

complete

the

project

plan

for

the

LRHs

trade

show.

I've covered the objective, WBS (Work Breakdown Structure), Responsibility Matrix, Gantt Chart and the Project Cost under the presentation. I used MS Excel 2003 and MS Project 2003 as project tools.