How to Use Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)?

A Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is a decomposition of all the work necessary to complete a project which is arranged in a hierarchy and constructed to allow for clear and logical groupings, either by activities or deliverables. A Work Breakdown Structure is a critical tool for organizing work, building realistic schedules and cost estimates, and controlling, which is a grouping of project work elements to organize and subdivide the total work scope of a project.

Steps to develop a Work Breakdown Structure

The steps below outline the major steps to take in creating a Work Breakdown Structure.

1. Define the scope of the project on the first level of the WBS
2. Project management deliverables should be outlined at level two of the WBS
3. Decompose project deliverables into work packages, to a level that can be scheduled, cost estimated, monitored, and controlled
4. Decompose project work packages into scheduled activities that can be used to build a schedule, estimate work effort, and assign resources
5. Apply the WBS to schedule development and resource assignment
6. Apply the WBS to, as needed, change control, risk, budget, cost, and communication management, etc.

Creating a Work Breakdown Structure

1. Click Diagram > New form the toolbar.
   
2. In the New Diagram window, select Breakdown Structure Diagram, then click Next.
   
3. Name the diagram then press OK. We will name the diagram Health Insurance in this tutorial.
   
4. You will see a diagram with only one element called Health Insurance:
   
   
5. Move the cursor to the element Health Insurance, then click the resource icon New Subordinate.
   
6. Double click the element with ID 1.1, and rename the element to Unfied CRM. You can add a coworker for element Unfied CRM by:
   1. Repeating step 5,
      
      OR
   2. Moving the cursor to the element Unfied CRM, then click the resource icon New Left Coworker or New Right Coworker.
      
7. Repeat step 6 for more coworkers of element United CRM.
8. To create a subordinate of element United CRM, move the cursor to element United CRM, then click the resource icon New Subordinate. Rename the new subordinate to CRM System Integration.
   
9. To add a coworker for CRM System Integration, there are two different methods:
   1. Repeat step 8,
      
      OR
   2. Move the cursor to element CRM System Integration, then click the resource icon Create Above Coworker or Create Below Coworker.
      
10. Repeat step 8 and 9 for other elements and their subordinates.
11. You will get something similar when you finish your diagram: