Project management: WBS and scheduling. Jordi Olivella (jorge.olivella@upc.edu).

Project management: WBS and scheduling

Jordi Olivella (jorge.olivella@upc.edu). Facultat de Nautica de Barcelona, UPC

The different reports on the project prepared before to its final approval contains
details on the tasks to perform and the time necessary to do it. Naturally, it would
be unreasonable to approve a project if you had no idea about what kind of tasks
should be performed if the project was finally approved. However, the level of
detail of the programming of the work is not enough for the execution phase. A
critical work to do during the execution-planning phase is to define and schedule
the tasks to perform –it is, in fact, the most well-known aspect of Project
Management.

Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

The Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) consists on establishing the tasks of the
project with different levels of decomposition. The WBC characteristics are:

• It is a deliverable oriented grouping of project elements, which organizes

and defines the total scope of the project.

• Each descending level represents an increasingly detailed definition of a

project component.

• Project components may be products or services necessary to complete

the project.

First step is the milestone list. Milestones are important and clearly identifiable
accomplishments. The milestone list provides a summary list of milestones
including dates for each milestone. It include an introductory paragraph, which
provides some insight to the major milestones. Based on the milestone list, the
different tasks at different levels will be defined. The division define is often
represented in a graph –as in the example presented in the Illustration 1.

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Project management: WBS and scheduling. Jordi Olivella (jorge.olivella@upc.edu).

Illustration 1

The tasks defined in the WBS are called often Word Packages. They will have
their own:

● Requirements to be fulfilled.

● Resources; including people, financial resources and other means.

● Person or persons in charge.

● Reporting and control system.

Note that the difference between the list of tasks of the project that appears in
the Business Case and the Project Charter is not only the level of detail. These
previous lists describe the tasks to perform and are useful to evaluate the
necessary resources. However, the Work Packages (WPs) are also management
units.

The definition of the WBS implies strategic and tactic management resources. It
implies that there is not a unique possible WBS for each project. In contrast,
different alternatives are possible. If a certain group of tasks will be performed
by a certain department of the company or external provider, these tasks will be
grouped in a WP, for example.

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Project management: WBS and scheduling. Jordi Olivella (jorge.olivella@upc.edu).

The division of the project in WPs has to consider the aspects that follows1:

• WBS element represents a single tangible or intangible deliverable. A

deliverable is any unique and verifiable product, result, or capability to
perform a service that must be produced to complete a process, phase, or
project.

• Accountability for each WP can be assigned to a single project team

member or subcontractor. If this is not possible, it is recommendable to
reconsider whether or not the WP can be further decomposed. Each
element in the WBS representing subcontracted or externally committed
deliverables directly corresponds to matching elements in the
subcontractor’s WBS.

• All significant reporting mechanisms, such as review meetings, monthly

reports and test reports are included and identified in the WBS. All WBS
elements are compatible with organizational and accounting structures.

• Note that, while some Work Packages coincide with a phase of the project,
others are performed during all it. Activities such as technical direction,
management of the documentation of the project, management of the
project and others are performed typically during all the phases of the
project.

Deliverables are important element of the Work Packages. A deliverable is a

unique and distinct element of output of a project. They include both final and
interim deliverables that are required to create the results. Clearly defining the
project deliverables, so that each is unique, ensures there will be no duplication
in the outcomes of the project or of the work performed to produce the final
products. Each Work Package include one or more deliverables.

Scheduling

After establishing the WPs, they have to be scheduled. The elements that
determine the schedule are:

● Minimum durations of the different WP. These durations are the starting
point of the scheduling.

1The Practice Standard for Work Breakdown Structures (Second Edition), published by the Project
Management Institute (PMI). p. 32

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Project management: WBS and scheduling. Jordi Olivella (jorge.olivella@upc.edu).

● Precedences. Some tasks can only be performed after one or several tasks
are completed.

● Necessary resources to perform each task.

● Availability of resources. Both human and material resources are limited

by nature; thus, the resources availability has to be considered as a
constraint when scheduling.

An important result of the scheduling is the determining of the critical path. In

project management, a critical path is the sequence of dependent tasks that form
the longest duration, allowing you to determine the most efficient timeline
possible to complete a project 2. If a task belonging to the critical path delays, the
whole project does. Other tasks admit a certain delay that does not affect the
whole project. This possible delay is called slack.

To schedule a project and to control it later the use of an appropriate software is

critical. There is a lot of Project Management software available. Some of the
solutions are also useful to manage the work of the teams –Monday.com,
Basecamp or Asana are between them. Other software focus on the scheduling
of tasks and resources assignment. Microsoft Project is a standard solution, but
other software such as open sources software Openproject can also be used.

2 Project Management Book of Knowledge (PMBOK) 5.0