The Initiation Phase is the first phase in the project. In this phase a business problem (or opportunity) is identified and a business case which provides various solution options is defined. A feasibility study is then conducted to investigate the likelihood of each solution option addressing the business problem and a final recommended solution is put forward. Once the recommended solution is approved, a project is initiated to deliver the approved solution. A Terms of Reference is completed, which outlines the objectives, scope and structure of the new project, and a Project Manager is appointed. The Project Manager begins recruiting a project team and establishes a Project Office environment. Approval is then sought to move into the detailed planning phase. The output of the first phase is a document called a charter.
11-Sep-14 3 Facilitator: Amed Salman Imtiaz, IPED, SUST Project Charter 1 Why is the project required? 2 What are we trying to achieve? 3 What are the deliverables? 4 What is the anticipated cost? 5 How long will it take to complete?
The direction and constraints for the project are outlined in a document called the charter. The project charter is an official, written document that acknowledges and recognizes that a project exists. It's usually published by the project sponsor but can also be published by another upper-level manager. It's important that the charter be published by a senior-level manager since it gives more weight and authority to the document and it demonstrates management's commitment and support for the project. The project charter usually comprise the answers of the following questions: 7 What are the performance criteria? 8 What are Key Performance Indicators(KPI)? 9 What are the main risks? 10 What are success criteria? 11 Who are the main stakeholders?
11-Sep-14 4 Facilitator: Amed Salman Imtiaz, IPED, SUST Purposes for the Charter The primary purpose of the project charter is twofold: It acknowledges that the project should begin and it assigns the project manager. Let's look a little closer at all the project charter purposes. Acknowledges that the project should begin The charter announces to all the stakeholders that the project has received approval and been endorsed by upper management. It serves as official notification to the functional business units that their cooperation is needed and expected. Commits resources to the project The project charter commits the organization's resources to the work of the project. This includes time, materials, money, and human resources. Ensures that everyone is on the same page When the purpose, objectives, and an overview of the project are written down and agreed upon, everyone understands the purpose from the beginning and confusion is eliminated. Appoints the project manager The project charter serves as the official notification and appointment of the project manager. The project sponsor formally assigns authority and responsibility for the project to the project manager. This means that stakeholders are put on notice that the project manager will soon be requesting resources from their areas. Provides an overview of the project and its goals The project charter is the first detailed stab at describing the project purpose, overview, goals, and high-level deliverables. While the concept document covered some of these things in a high-level fashion, the project charter goes into more detail.
11-Sep-14 5 Facilitator: Amed Salman Imtiaz, IPED, SUST Essential Elements of a Project Charter The following elements should be contained in a project charter: Project overview The overview includes the purpose of the project and also explains the reason for undertaking the project. It should also describe the product or service of the project and reference the product description. A copy of the product description should be attached to the project charter. Project objectives Project objectives should include the factors that help determine whether the project is a success. Business justification Its recommended to state the justification of selected the project from the business point of view in the project charter. This includes describing the benefits to the organization of taking on the project and the impacts to the organization if it doesn't. Resource and cost estimates If the initial cost estimates are made, then these can be included in this section. This section might include the cost of the feasibility study if one was conducted and the costs of the proposed alternatives. Roles and responsibilities Roles and responsibilities, with the names of the participants under each title, should be stated clearly in the project charter Sign-off This section is very important. Space, for signatures from the project sponsor, key stakeholders, senior management, customers, and anyone else appropriate for this project, need to be allocated in a project charter. Attachments Any other documentation that will help clarify the project, including the product description and the feasibility study, should be attached to the project charter.
11-Sep-14 6 Facilitator: Amed Salman Imtiaz, IPED, SUST 11-Sep-14 7 Facilitator: Amed Salman Imtiaz, IPED, SUST 11-Sep-14 8 Facilitator: Amed Salman Imtiaz, IPED, SUST Holding the Project Kickoff Meeting The purpose of the kickoff meeting is to accomplish verbally what you accomplished in writing, that is, communicate the objective and purpose of the project, gain support and the commitment of resources for the project, and explain the roles and responsibilities of the key stakeholders. The following agenda are generally dealt during such meeting:
The first thing to do is introduce all the key players in the meeting, even if these folks have all worked together for quite some time. Next the project overview, including project purpose and objectives, should be described to all the stakeholders. Now the roles and responsibilities of all the stakeholders should be communicated and discussed. Its need to be made sure that everyone leaves the meeting understanding what's required of them during the course of the project. The closing agenda item for this meeting is a question and answer session. Everyone should be allowed to have the opportunity to voice their questions and concerns. 11-Sep-14 9 Facilitator: Amed Salman Imtiaz, IPED, SUST Project Planning Project planning is perhaps the most important activity of any project. A lack of proper and thorough planning will rapidly become obvious as the project moves into the subsequent phases. As a result, much time and energy must be dedicated to this activity.
Planning any activity requires careful thought and preparation. Before stepping into action, be sure that you can answer the following questions:
1. WHAT are you planning to do? 2. WHY do you want to do this project? 3. WHEN and WHERE will the activity take place? 4. WHO will benefit from the project? 5. WHAT staff members(s) will need to approve the project? 6. WHAT funds are needed? 7. WHEN will the basic planning be done? 8. WHAT committees are necessary? 9. WHAT kind of publicity is needed? 10. WHO deserves a special thank you? 11. WAS the project worthwhile? 12. WHATS next? WHERE do we go from here?
11-Sep-14 10 Facilitator: Amed Salman Imtiaz, IPED, SUST Project Planning Project planning: identifies specific community problems that stand in the way of meeting community goals creates a work plan for addressing those problems and attaining the goals describes measurable beneficial impacts to the community that result from the projects implementation determines the level of resources or funding necessary to implement the project
Why is project planning important? The success and sustainability of a project is very closely tied to its planning process. Projects often fail due to poor planning, many times because they do not define the problems well or take important factors into consideration such as the needs and views of everyone involved in and affected by the project. Effective planning provides detail and structure to project work plans and establishes a way to continue the project after the grant funding ends, meaning it is sustainable. 11-Sep-14 11 Facilitator: Amed Salman Imtiaz, IPED, SUST Project Planning Project Planning helps us to: think ahead and prepare for the future clarify goals and develop a vision identify issues that will need to be addressed choose between options consider whether a project is possible make the best use of resources motivate staff and the community assign resources and responsibilities achieve the best results There are four basic reasons for project planning: To eliminate or reduce uncertainty To improve efficiency of the operation To obtain a better understanding of the objectives To provide a basis for monitoring and controlling work 11-Sep-14 12 Facilitator: Amed Salman Imtiaz, IPED, SUST Planning Phase 1. Define an orderly arrangement of activities and resources to deliver the product or service. 2. Begin by outlining all tasks (the work) 3. Identify the resources (people, hardware, software, services, etc.) required for all tasks 4. Organize the tasks into sequences of chronological events (schedule) 5. Develop a spending plan within the budget 5. Arrange to procure external resources 6. Identify all stakeholders and the method (how), frequency (how often), and content (what) of communications to them 7. Analyze risks and decide what can be done about them Accept, Mitigate, or Transfer 8. Determine how to measure success
Output of Planning Phase Project Plan
Project Planning 11-Sep-14 13 Facilitator: Amed Salman Imtiaz, IPED, SUST Depending on complexity, project plans can contain:
1. Work Breakdown Structure 2. Resource Breakdown Structure 3. Schedule 4. Budget and Spending Plans 5. Performance Plan 6. Risk Management Plan 7. Procurement Plan 8. Communications Plan 9. Change and Configuration Management Plan 10. Quality Management Test Plan 11. Quality Management IV&V Plan
The Project Plan is used to guide project execution and project control.
Project Planning 11-Sep-14 14 Facilitator: Amed Salman Imtiaz, IPED, SUST Step 1: Project Goals A project is successful when the needs of the stakeholders have been met. The best way to do this is by conducting stakeholder interviews. Take time during the interviews to draw out the true needs that create real benefits. The next step, once you have conducted all the interviews, and have a comprehensive list of needs is to prioritize them. From the prioritized list, create a set of goals that can be easily measured. Once you have established a clear set of goals, they should be recorded in the project plan. Step 2: Project Deliverables Using the goals you have defined in step 1, create a list of things the project needs to deliver in order to meet those goals. Specify when and how each item must be delivered. Add the deliverables to the project plan with an estimated delivery date. More accurate delivery dates will be established during the scheduling phase, which is next. Step 3: Project Schedule Create a list of tasks that need to be carried out for each deliverable identified in step 2. For each task identify the following: The amount of effort (hours or days) required to complete the task. The resource who will carryout the task. Once you have established the amount of effort for each task, you can workout the effort required for each deliverable, and an accurate delivery date. Update your deliverables section with the more accurate delivery dates.
Practical Approach to Project Planning. 11-Sep-14 15 Facilitator: Amed Salman Imtiaz, IPED, SUST Step 4: Supporting Plans This section deals with plans you should create as part of the planning process. These can be included directly in the plan.
Human Resource Plan Identify by name, the individuals and organizations with a leading role in the project. For each, describe their roles and responsibilities on the project. Next, describe the number and type of people needed to carryout the project. For each resource detail start dates, estimated duration and the method you will use for obtaining them.
Communications Plan Create a document showing who needs to be kept informed about the project and how they will receive the information. The most common mechanism is a weekly or monthly progress report, describing how the project is performing, milestones achieved and work planned for the next period.
Practical Approach to Project Planning. 11-Sep-14 16 Facilitator: Amed Salman Imtiaz, IPED, SUST Step 4: Supporting Plans Risk management is an important part of project management. Although often overlooked, it is important to identify as many risks to your project as possible, and be prepared if something bad happens. Here are some examples of common project risks: Time and cost estimates too optimistic. Customer review and feedback cycle too slow. Unexpected budget cuts. Unclear roles and responsibilities. Stakeholder input is not sought, or their needs are not properly understood. Stakeholders changing requirements after the project has started. Stakeholders adding new requirements after the project has started. Poor communication resulting in misunderstandings, quality problems and rework. Lack of resource commitment. Risks can be tracked using a simple risk log. Add each risk you have identified to your risk log; write down what you will do in the event it occurs, and what you will do to prevent it from occurring. Review your risk log on a regular basis, adding new risks as they occur during the life of the project. Remember, when risks are ignored they don't go away.
Practical Approach to Project Planning. 11-Sep-14 17 Facilitator: Amed Salman Imtiaz, IPED, SUST 1. Aim of Project What do we want to produce? The aim of the project is a mixture of the reasons for doing the project and the benefits that are expected from it. This section of the plan can be either fulfilled by linking to the main business case, or by restating it in language for the expected audience. For example, your business case may have been written for high level approval in your organisation. You may want to now put it in terms the project executive expects. 2. Outputs Given the aim of the project, what do we actually need to produce to get there? What will your completed project be made up of? These need to be clearly defined. For example, your project's aim may be to upgrade the IT infrastructure in an organisation. Your final output would be a completed computer network, a new computer on every desk, and all appropriate software installed and ready to go. Essential Elements of Project Planning. 11-Sep-14 18 Facilitator: Amed Salman Imtiaz, IPED, SUST 3. Quality Criteria Now we have the outputs, we need to understand what quality they need to be of. This means we need the completed output to be of a certain quality, and we need to define what that quality is. These targets tell you what success is, what completion of the project is. They need to be SMART: Specific: Clearly defined and precise. Measurable: e.g. not "new computers," but "computers with 2Gb of memory," etc. Attainable: Don't ask for the impossible. Relevant: Is the criterion actually related to the aim of the project? Time-based: Enough time to achieve this. There is no point expecting a year's worth of work in one week! It is important you take some time with the stakeholders in your project to produce this list. The final customer of the project will naturally be very involved, but don't forget your business head - don't promise everything without considering the costs. Your project executive, and a representative of those who will be doing the work, will have major inputs into this also. Finally, you will also need to decide who has the final say over the quality of the outputs. Hopefully your work on defining the quality criteria will mean there are no arguments over the quality (i.e. no qualitative judgements, only quantitative) but you need to make sure you schedule in time and people to do the evaluation work. Essential Elements of Project Planning. 11-Sep-14 19 Facilitator: Amed Salman Imtiaz, IPED, SUST 4. Resources We have now set down what outputs we need to produce, and what quality they need to be at. This means we are now in a position to look at the resources we will need to achieve this. Resources include staff time, particular knowledge or skill sets, money (e.g. buying equipment), and time (some tasks can't be increased by throwing more people at the problem, e.g. delivery times, setting time for concrete, etc.). 5. Management Structure How are we going to manage the work? You need to describe the general approach to the project here. Who will be the decision makers for the various different streams of work? For example, you may be doing a significant procurement - who makes the decision about what company to buy from? How will we share progress on the project? Who will we share it to? For example, you may decide to have regular project team meetings - who needs to attend? What level of information will you be sharing? Who else needs to be kept informed, at what level of detail, and how often? For example, you may want to keep the project executive updated at an overview level of detail on a weekly basis, while you keep other managers appraised at a higher level of detail. You will also need to spell out the relationship of yourself to the project executive, in terms of the monitoring of progress. Equally, you need to put down how you will be monitoring progress of the allocated tasks. There is no one right answer for how this should be done, and indeed it will vary with every project. Make sure you think about the size and complexity of the project, and also the organisation's ethos and current management style. Essential Elements of Project Planning. 11-Sep-14 20 Facilitator: Amed Salman Imtiaz, IPED, SUST 6. Milestones Here you need to think about how you will break up the project. Unless it is very small, you don't want to have the entire project as one lump of work, with the only check on progress at the very end. Instead, it makes sense to break the project up into discrete chunks, where related tasks can be lumped together, with a sensible milestone at the end of them. For example, in the technology refresh in the example above, you may want to break the project down into something like: 1. Requirements Gathering 2. Tender Writing 3. Tendering Process 4. Contract Negotiation 5. Deployment 6. Testing It makes sense to have a defined milestone, so you know when each section is completed. There is also another benefit of breaking the project into chunks, which I'll come back to. Essential Elements of Project Planning. 11-Sep-14 21 Facilitator: Amed Salman Imtiaz, IPED, SUST 7. Tolerances You will have already looked at the resources you need. Now we need to set how far you, or the project executive, can let the project stray from these targets before needing to sound the alarm. For example, you could set a tolerance in terms of finance of +/- 5%, and a tolerance in terms of time of +/- 10%. Equally, you may want to look at tolerances of quality - i.e. how far from the quality criteria are you willing to accept? It is remarkably unlikely that a project will not deviate from its resource or quality targets. Setting tolerances allows you to be able to manage the project without continually seeking guidance from the project executive as to whether you should carry on. This is not to say that you should be happy with these deviations, and you should try to avoid them, and monitor them closely. That way you can build your understanding of the project for the future. 8. Dependencies This is where you look at what needs to happen before something else. You need to start thinking about the dependencies so you, and the project team, can understand the impact of changes in any part of the project. These dependencies should include both those internal to the project (i.e. those under your control), and those external to it (i.e. those outside of your control). For example, you may need an accurate figure for the number of staff in the organisation. This needs to come from your HR department, and would be an external dependency. Essential Elements of Project Planning. 11-Sep-14 22 Facilitator: Amed Salman Imtiaz, IPED, SUST 9. Risks Simply, what could go wrong? What could happen that would damage your ability to deliver the project? Are there things you can do to avoid them, or minimise them? 10. Scheduling This is the Gantt chart-style information that many people envisage when a project plan is mentioned. In this, you need to put down what you expect to happen when. It will include your dependencies, milestones, and probably resources. At this point, it will be a relatively high overview of the whole project. The schedule needs to include the overview, with the project broken down into sensible chunks. This is the other advantage of breaking the project into chunks we mentioned above. By having the project broken up in this way, you will be able to start planning the first section in quite some detail, extending out for a few weeks. But from then on, it will start to be based more and more on blind guesswork and faith. Don't try to be artificially precise - keep it vague, use rough figures. 11. Contractual Aspects This critical section of the plan includes a complete list and description of all reporting requirements, customer-supplied resources, liaison arrangements, advisory committees, project review and cancellation procedures, proprietary requirements, any specific management agreements (e.g., use of subcontracts), as well as the technical deliverables and their specification, delivery schedules and a specific procedure for changing any of the above
Essential Elements of Project Planning. 11-Sep-14 23 Facilitator: Amed Salman Imtiaz, IPED, SUST Defining Tasks Tasks are a single piece of work, or units of related work, that must be completed in order to satisfy a project deliverable or the requirement of a deliverable. When you've completed all the tasks of the project, the product or service of the project is complete. And there you have itdefine all your tasks, complete them, and your project is complete.
In planning a project, the project manager must structure the work into small elements that are: Manageable, in that specific authority and responsibility can be assigned Independent, or with minimum interfacing with and dependence on other ongoing elements Integratable so that the total package can be seen Measurable in terms of progress
Breaking Down the Project Activities 11-Sep-14 24 Facilitator: Amed Salman Imtiaz, IPED, SUST Managing the Work The purpose of task definition is to allow you to break down the work of the project into manageable components so that you can easily determine time, resource, and cost estimates. Each task should be broken down to the point where these estimates are easily derived. Breaking down the deliverables into tasks makes the project manager's job easier because the work is subdivided into small units that are easily assigned to one team member or a group of team members. You can communicate the details of the work to the right team members, manage and track project progress, and provide a way to logically group similar tasks together.
The WBS breaks all the work in the project into separate tasks (tasks may also be referred to as activities). There are two kinds of tasks on a WBS: summary tasks and work packages.
Install the sprinkler system for a lawn is a summary task, because it includes several subordinate tasks. Installing a sprinkler system might include several of these distinct, subordinate tasks, such as digging trenches or installing pipes. Each of these separate tasks is called a work package. By performing all these simple work packages, you accomplish a summary task
Breaking Down the Project Activities 11-Sep-14 25 Facilitator: Amed Salman Imtiaz, IPED, SUST Managing the Work Let's look at an example. You've been assigned as the project manager for your company's upcoming annual conference. Customers from all over the world fly to your city to attend this conference and learn about your company's products, take some training classes, and meet with vendors. One of the deliverables of this project includes connecting and setting up 200 PCs for use at the training seminars held during and after the conference. One of the tasks associated with this deliverable might be loading software on each PC. Another task might be to run two power strips for each table in the ballrooms of the hotel where the training is being held.
At this point, you don't need to worry about in which order the tasks appear; just start a list of tasks for your project and give yourself room in between each major heading to come back and add to them. You'll find as you start breaking down tasks that you'll think of new tasks for some of the deliverables you've already broken down, so if you leave yourself some space, you can add these tasks as you think of them. Breaking Down the Project Activities 11-Sep-14 26 Facilitator: Amed Salman Imtiaz, IPED, SUST Breaking Down the Project Activities Deliverable Tasks Comments Set up 200 PCs for training seminars the evening before the conference begins in the designated ballrooms.
Sign lease agreement for PCs. Coordinate with procurement department. Arrange delivery of PCs. Part of lease agreement. Run electric extension cords and power strips. Coordinate with hotel staff. Load software. Coordinate with IT department. Table 1: Task List 11-Sep-14 27 Facilitator: Amed Salman Imtiaz, IPED, SUST Task Sequencing After you define the tasks, you'll want to sequence them in a logical order. This will help you when you're ready to create the project schedule later on. For example, you can't load software onto the PCs until they've been delivered and they have a source of electricity, so it makes sense to list the "Load software" task last in this list. When you're working on small projects, you can easily combine the task definition with the task sequencing process. As you list the tasks, group them into a logical order at the same time. Larger projects require a two-step process. First identify the tasks; then sequence them.
Task sequencing also provides a way for you to keep similar types of work together. In our example project, the IT department is in charge of hooking up the PCs and loading the software. They also have the responsibility for setting up the PC connections from the speaker's podium to the overhead projection system. A logical place to include these tasks would be in our task list shown earlier in Table 1. In other words, we've grouped tasks that are similar in nature in the same place.
Breaking Down the Project Activities 11-Sep-14 28 Facilitator: Amed Salman Imtiaz, IPED, SUST Task Sequencing Task identification and sequencing allows the project manager to define estimates and costs and to determine the skills needed for the work of the project. For instance, the task called "Load software" tells us what type of skills are needed to complete this task. Obviously, we need folks who have some understanding of how PCs work and how to troubleshoot problems if the software doesn't load correctly. This means that we're going to have to work with the functional manager of the IT group to assign some resources to these tasks or contract with a vendor to perform these tasks for us.
Your project budget, the project schedule, and resource assignments are determined primarily from the task identification phase and sequencing exercises. As you can see, these are important steps in the project Planning phase, so you want to take the time here to do a thorough job. But don't feel that you're out there all on your own. Hold a team meeting or two and do some brainstorming to come up with all the tasks necessary to complete the deliverables. Then, after you've compiled your final list, review the list with the team before moving on to the network diagramming or project schedule phase to be sure you haven't missed anything.
Breaking Down the Project Activities 11-Sep-14 29 Facilitator: Amed Salman Imtiaz, IPED, SUST Determining Milestones If you're over the age of 15, you've experienced some milestones in your life: Reaching age 16 (driving!), then 18 (graduation from high school), then 21, and, well, you get the idea. Milestones in projects work the same way. Milestones are markers along the way that let you know that a significant accomplishment has been reached. Milestones are not tasks but they can consist of a grouping of tasks. You don't perform actions to complete a milestone; in other words, they aren't work. Instead, they signify that a grouping of work has been completed or a significant accomplishment has been reached. Milestones might be based on deliverables, or a grouping of deliverables, or a grouping of tasks. For example, one milestone for our conference project might be, "Ballrooms prepped and PCs set up for training." Some project managers like to use milestone charts as one way to report on project progress. A milestone chart should include a listing of the milestones with their expected completion dates and their actual completion dates. Table 2 shows a sample portion of a milestone chart for the annual conference project. Milestones are a way to help monitor the progress of the project. They are a great tool to use for reporting to executive management because they show at a glance where the project stands and what remains to be completed. Milestone charts work particularly well for smaller projects.
Breaking Down the Project Activities 30 Determining Milestones
Breaking Down the Project Activities Milestone Expected Completion Date Actual Completion Date Vendor registration complete 05/15/03 05/15/03 Website updated with conference info 07/01/03 07/01/03 Brochures mailed to prospective attendees 08/01/03 08/01/03 Training classes designed and approved 09/15/03 Ballrooms prepped and PCs set up for training 11/14/03 Table 2: Milestone Chart 11-Sep-14 31 Facilitator: Amed Salman Imtiaz, IPED, SUST A work breakdown structure (WBS) is a tool used to graphically display the deliverables of the project in a hierarchical fashion. It organizes the work of the project into logical groupings similar to a milestone chart but displays the information in a tree form or an outline form. Basically, what it means is Work Breakdown Structure is a breakdown of work into as small a task as possible
The work breakdown structure acts as a vehicle for breaking the work down into smaller elements, thus providing a greater probability that every major and minor activity will be accounted for.
The WBS is the single most important element because it provides a common framework from which: The total program can be described as a summation of subdivided elements. Planning can be performed. Costs and budgets can be established. Time, cost, and performance can be tracked. Objectives can be linked to company resources in a logical manner. Schedules and status-reporting procedures can be established. Network construction and control planning can be initiated. The responsibility assignments for each element can be established.
Constructing the Work Breakdown Structure 11-Sep-14 32 Facilitator: Amed Salman Imtiaz, IPED, SUST Work breakdown structure (WBS))
the work breakdown structure can be used to provide the basis for: The responsibility matrix Network scheduling Costing Risk analysis Organizational structure Coordination of objectives Control (including contract administration)
Constructing the Work Breakdown Structure 11-Sep-14 33 Facilitator: Amed Salman Imtiaz, IPED, SUST PURPOSE OF WBS The main purpose of Work Breakdown Structure is that firstly, it helps to define and organize the scope of the total project more accurately and specifically. The most common way this is done is by using a hierarchical tree structure. Each level of this structure breaks the project deliverables or objectives down to more specific and measurable chunks.
The second reason for using a Work Breakdown Structure in your projects is to help with assigning responsibilities, resource allocation, monitoring the project, and controlling the project. The WBS makes the deliverables more precise and concrete so that the project team knows exactly what has to be accomplished within each deliverable.
This also allows for better estimating of cost, risk, and time because you can work from the smaller tasks back up to the level of the entire project. Finally, it allows you double check all the deliverables' specifics with the stakeholders and make sure there is nothing missing or overlapping. Besides, using the tree structure, you may also use Mind Mapping methodology, if you are familiar with it.
Constructing the Work Breakdown Structure 11-Sep-14 34 Facilitator: Amed Salman Imtiaz, IPED, SUST Work breakdown structure (WBS) The first step to creating your WBS is to get all your team, and possibly key stakeholders, together in one room. Your project team is your most vital asset to this process. Your team possesses all the expertise, experience, and creative thinking that will be needed to get down to the specifics of each deliverable. Next, we have to get the first two levels setup. The first level is the project title, and second level is made up of all the deliverables for the project. At this stage it is important to function under The 100% Rule. This rule basically states that the WBS (specifically the first two levels) includes 100% of all the work defined in the project scope statement and management plan. Also, it must capture 100% of all the deliverables for the project including internal, external, and interim. In reality the WBS usually only captures between 90-95%, but 100% is our goal.
Once we have gotten the first two levels set, it is time to launch into our decomposition or breakdown. Decomposition is the act of breaking down deliverables in to successively smaller chunks of work to be completed in order to achieve a level of work that can be both realistically managed by the Project Manager and completed within a given time frame by one or more team members..
Constructing the Work Breakdown Structure 11-Sep-14 35 Facilitator: Amed Salman Imtiaz, IPED, SUST Work breakdown structure (WBS)
This level of breakdown and detail is called the Work Package. Work packages are the lowest level of the WBS and are pieces of work that are specifically assigned to one person or one team of people to be completed. This is also the level at which the Project Manger has to monitor all project work.
The very common question is how specific or small does a chunk of work need to be to still be considered a work package? Well PMBOK does not seem to give a definitive answer on that. Most project managers concur that this varies by project, but can usually be measured using the 8/80 Rule. The 8/80 Rule says that no work package should be less than 8 hours or greater than 80 hours. Notice we said that the work package is the lowest level of the WBS. Activities and tasks are not included in the WBS. They will be planned from the work packages once they are assigned.
Constructing the Work Breakdown Structure 11-Sep-14 36 Facilitator: Amed Salman Imtiaz, IPED, SUST Organizing the WBS Levels A WBS is similar to a company organization chart or a family tree. It can also be shown in outline form, which we'll get to shortly. It starts out with the big picture, and each successive level gets more and more detailed. Like an org chart, it's a hierarchically oriented view that shows which tasks "report" to which dependencies. There is no set number of levels in a WBS, but it is recommend not going more than five or six levels deep because the WBS will get bogged down in too much detail. If you're working on a large project you will have sub-project managers working with you who will be responsible for developing their own WBS from the project level WBS. The highest level of the WBS, level one, is the project level. The next level holds the deliverables or major milestones of the project. The succeeding levels are further breakdowns of the deliverables that may include tasks or groupings of tasks. Does this sound familiar? The deliverables are defined in the scope statement, and you defined the tasks in the task identification process. Now it's a matter of plugging them into the WBS. Keep in mind that for small projects you could skip the task identification process and perform it at the same time you're defining the WBS. Until you're experienced at this, though, you should break down the tasks first and then plug them into the WBS. Remember when defining your WBS levels that deliverables are typically described as nouns or as past-tense events such as "PCs set up," "Brochures mailed," etc. Tasks, which are developed from the deliverables, are usually described as action words: create, develop, establish, and so on.
Constructing the Work Breakdown Structure 11-Sep-14 37 Facilitator: Amed Salman Imtiaz, IPED, SUST Organizing the WBS Levels Let's look at some examples. The next graphic shows the level-one and level-two details for our conference project. Keep in mind that the level-two deliverables in this figure are only a sample. Your project would have many more deliverables than this Level one shows the project name. This is always the first level in any WBS. Level two for this WBS shows some of the deliverables or milestones for this project. Now let's take a look at the next two levels:
Constructing the Work Breakdown Structure 11-Sep-14 38 Facilitator: Amed Salman Imtiaz, IPED, SUST Now let's take a look at the next two levels:
Level three in this WBS shows a grouping of tasks, sometimes called summary tasks. For example, "Obtain PCs" is a summary task under the "PCs set up" deliverable found at level two. The "Obtain PCs" summary task at level three has tasks under it that must be completed in order to consider the "Obtain PCs" summary task complete. In order to complete the deliverable called "PCs set up," the two level-three summary tasks shown on the WBS, "Obtain PCs" and "Set up PCs," must have all of their tasks completed. The same is true for the other deliverables. 39 Now let's take a look at the next two levels:
The idea is to start the WBS with the project and then continue to break down the deliverables into smaller, more manageable units in each subsequent level. These levels could include milestones, a grouping of tasks, or individual tasks. The idea is to keep adding levels to the WBS until you've broken the work out to the point where responsibility for each unit of work can be assigned to a specific person or to a team. This is also the level that allows you to easily determine estimates and the skills needed to complete these tasks 40 Work Packages A work package is the lowest level of a WBS. This is the level where assignments, estimates, and resources are easily determined. It doesn't matter whether the WBS has three levels or five levels; the lowest level in either case is considered the work package level.
In the WBS shown earlier, level four is the work package level. In that example, the individual tasks like 10.1.1 Sign lease agreement and 10.1.2 Arrange delivery are the work packages and are assigned to individuals or teams to complete. If we broke off the WBS at level threein other words, if we didn't include level-four tasksthen level three would be the work package level.
Work packages may include individual tasks, milestones, or subprojects within the project. If you're working on a very large project, the project should be broken down into smaller subprojects rather than individual deliverables. Level one still remains the overall project, level two becomes subprojects within the project, and level three may also be subprojects within the subprojects, or this level might start the breakout of deliverables. In this case, level three is the work package level. Here is an example WBS with projects and subprojects.
Constructing the Work Breakdown Structure 11-Sep-14 41 Facilitator: Amed Salman Imtiaz, IPED, SUST In a structure like this, subproject managers may be assigned to the level-two subprojects. All subproject managers report to a single project manager who has responsibility for the overall project. Level-two subproject managers (also called assistant project managers) assign the level-three subprojects to teams or individual project assistants. At this point, the project assistants create their own WBS for the level-three subproject they've been assigned. For large projects, you can see that this could get rather complicated. However, the effort is well worth it in the end since you have a logical, graphical depiction of the project breakdowns in one place. Once the WBS has been reviewed and approved by the project manager and project sponsor, it's a good idea to tape up a copy of it in the project team meeting room. And don't forget, a copy of the WBS should be filed in your project note-book for future reference Constructing the Work Breakdown Structure 11-Sep-14 42 Facilitator: Amed Salman Imtiaz, IPED, SUST Identification Codes You may have noticed numbers next to each of the WBS elements. These identifiers, or WBS codes, allow you to uniquely identify each element of the WBS. They're used to track the cost of the work, or the cost of each element in the WBS. They also serve as reference numbers to other planning information. As you begin assigning tasks and defining resource needs and such, you'll want to document some of this information (the act of documenting will become contagious over time), and the codes provide you a handy way to tie the information back to the WBS. For example, you might want to note that WBS item 10.2 was assigned to the IT department. Maybe there are several costs involved with this summary task that you need to break out. That information can be recorded in the WBS reference document or WBS dictionary. The dictionary is created as a simple Word document or spreadsheet document that lists each WBS reference number down the left side with comments regarding that WBS element to the right. This document should be filed in the same section of your project notebook as the WBS. Your budget officer will need these numbers as well to track the cost of the project. Depending on the WBS you've constructed, level-two and level-one elements are simply a roll-up of the costs from all the levels beneath them. These codes come in handy when using the outline view for the WBS. We'll look at that next.
Constructing the Work Breakdown Structure 11-Sep-14 43 Facilitator: Amed Salman Imtiaz, IPED, SUST Constructing the Responsibility Assignment Matrix We've seen a couple of examples of roles and responsibilities charts in the slides. The Responsibility Assignment Matrix (RAM) is the same idea. After you've constructed your WBS, you're ready to determine the types of skills and resources needed for the project. The RAM will help you do that. A RAM is usually depicted as a chart, with the types of resources needed listed in each row and the WBS elements as the columns. The intersection of a row and column contains an indicator that shows what level of activity is needed by the resource. This could consist of a simple word like Approve or Review, or it could contain a code that ties to a legend if you need to be more specific than a one-or two-word description. Table 3 shows an example RAM for the "PCs set up" summary task.
Constructing the Work Breakdown Structure Resource Lease Agreement Install Power Strips Load Software Procurement Dept. Create N/A N/A Hotel staff N/A Install N/A IT Dept. N/A Review Install 11-Sep-14 44 Facilitator: Amed Salman Imtiaz, IPED, SUST The WBS clarifies and provides necessary details for a number of project management activities. Building a WBS helps to:
Provide a detailed illustration of project scope. Though the statement of work defines scope at the conceptual level, a comprehensive look at a projects scope can be accomplished only with a WBS. Monitor progress. The tasks on the WBS become the basis for monitoring progress because each is a measurable unit of work. Create accurate cost and schedule estimates. The WBS will detail costs for equipment, labor, and materials on each task. Build project teams. Every team member wants clear work assignments and a sense of how his or her work fits into the overall effort. A good WBS does both. You can also increase the teams commitment to the plan by having them participate in building the WBS.
Constructing the Work Breakdown Structure 11-Sep-14 45 Facilitator: Amed Salman Imtiaz, IPED, SUST P (Product)BS/WBS Figure: PBS Figure : WBS 11-Sep-14 46 Facilitator: Amed Salman Imtiaz, IPED, SUST