I’ve used “WBS Coach” to improve my use of WBS on my projects, and it is the basis for an in-house WBS course I’ll be offering in Q1 2010. I recommend it. Here’s why.
It strikes me that many of us project managers land here accidentally. We’re doing other work in the organization, and we show some aptitude for key skills that help us get things done and delivered ourselves and with other people. Either by our own initiative or by suggestion of a mentor, we start down the project management path. Sometimes, we’re in that path quite some time before we even realize that we’re doing project management. Or if we are aware, we’re there for quite some time before we realize that there is a whole formal discipline around PM.
Natural aptitude for PM
Some of the skills we bring naturally include the following:
- Organization: We may be good at organizing details, thinking through process and impact of actions, etc.
- Leadership: We may be natural leaders among peers, or perhaps we’re in a leadership position, and we seem to fit there.
- Communication: We may be good at communicating complex ideas to customers, to peers, to organizational leadership.
- Delivery: We may be simply good at getting stuff done, consistently and reliably, and with a proper quality and predictability.
Skilling up on PM itself — Start with the WBS
Those “soft” skills are critical to proper and effective project management. But it’s not sufficient to stop there. We who land here accidentally need to go after some particular PM skills and tools. For me, the WBS is the first among these tools.
The WBS is pivotal to project management. I worked a long time in the PM discipline before knowing what WBS was. I used my own various forms of it; there’s really no other way to get your arms around your project otherwise. You’re probably using a WBS now, even if you don’t know it.
WBS is pivotal for good PM
As a tool, it can be fairly quickly functional for you. It may take time to master some subtleties around it, but you can start using it well pretty quickly. It’s also very complimentary to your natural skill set as an accidental and Cottage PM:
- WBS & Organization: The WBS will help you organize your project quickly and predictably. If you have any PM knowledge within your organization, the WBS will also be familiar to them.
- WBS & Leadership: By capturing your full project scope in a single image, you can more easily focus your project team’s work and steer priorities.
- WBS & Communication: The WBS will help you communicate your project scope, assumptions, challenges, and status within the project team and among project stakeholders. It’s a picture. It’s an easy slide to put on the wall and talk to. It’s easy to present, and it’s easy to consume.
- WBS & Delivery: By focusing on project deliverables, you have a much better changes to actually deliver.
“WBS Coach” helped me use the WBS well
After certifying PMP in early 2009, I still wanted more functional knowledge about the WBS. I met Josh Nankivel online a little while before he released his first training package, WBS Coach. He just published his self-training package called, WBS Coach. I bought it. I liked it. Josh’s insights for WBS usage have already been helpful to me in my own work and in my coaching of PM in my Fundamentals of Project Management book club. And I’ve bought 10 more licenses from Josh to use to train my staff in a few weeks (Jan/Feb 2010) because I’m convinced that WBS is the first tool for a new PM to master.
Once that’s underway, I’ll let you know how it works as a course material. But I already know how easy Josh’s package made WBS for me, and I highly recommend it. What’s important is that this package is spot on and will help you start using WBS well. Go get Josh’s package at WBSCoach.com. Or, go download his free document, Top 7 WBS Mistakes That Project Managers Make.
Disclosure: I am an affiliate with WBSCoach.com. As such, I earn a referral commission. I am also an active user of WBS Coach, so I’m completely comfortable recommending it based on my own use and experience with the package.
No related posts.
[...] I described how blogs are used now and told them some about my professional blog, CottagePM.com. I suggested to them that perhaps they also would find that they had some unique perspectices on [...]
[...] Scope Creep: Using whatever process and approach you like, did you lock in the project vision and scope? Do you all know and agree on “what done looks like?” Do you have a clear list of deliverables? Are the specific enough to provide a basis for control of the list? (Tip: Consider using a Work Breakdown Structure – WBS – to provide better visibility to scope. Click here for some more info about using WBS.) [...]