I’ve been looking at Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) again lately. I was coaching a new brand project manager on some basics, and found myself once again focusing on the WBS and its value to the PM’s planning and control.
- The key point I drove home on WBS was that it’s the full scope of the project: If it’s not in the WBS, it’s not part of the project.
- I also showed her the various forms a WBS takes. We looked at a current small project that we’re planning and roughed out a WBS example using XMind (xmind.net).
- Using XMind, I also showed her how the WBS is then sequenced to a project network, and how some basic delivery dates produce a Gantt chart. We did all that in XMind, but it’s feature set isn’t very complete, but it’s helpful for a quick view.
- We then took our WBS example and entered it into OpenProj, an opensource, free PM management tool that looks a little like MS Project. That produced a much better Gantt chart. It was the first time she’d seen any of these tools, so it was good to take a rough example from concept through WBS to Gantt.
All of these ideas are covered very effectively in Josh Nankivel’s WBS Coach package. My new PM will be getting her copy in a week or so. 
Read more about WBS Coach here. If you need a more interactive, Q&A experience to learn about WBS, consider Josh’s PM eLearning site.
Have you used WBS Coach? What’s your take?
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