Introduction

If you were to ask anyone off the street what they think of when they hear “project management,” you are likely to hear “planning.” And if you further ask them what they mean by “planning,” you are likely to hear “schedule” or “work plan.” Yes, even to the uninitiated, people know that project managers plan and develop work schedules, if they do nothing else.

Yet, the process of understanding all the work that needs to be done and building a realistic project schedule continues to be the Achilles’ heel of project management.

We begin our close review of the schedule development process by exploring the power and the purpose of the work breakdown structure (WBS). By performing this step correctly, we will do a much better job at the other detail project planning activities, such as identifying resources, identifying risks, getting better estimates, building a realistic schedule, and developing an accurate project budget. In addition, a solid WBS enables us to better manage stakeholder expectations and the critical success factors throughout the project life cycle.

As part of this review, we clarify exactly what a WBS is (and is not); we examine why the WBS is crucial to our other project management activities; we identify how to develop an effective WBS and how to avoid the common miscues in this arena; and we discuss why these WBS development principles are still applicable for an agile project.