PMI - Community Post

23 October 2009

Build Your WBS One Block at a Time

Block House By Kevin Archbold, PMI-SP, PMP

Your project’s WBS (Work Breakdown Structure) is comprised of simple boxes and lines. It’s easy to forget that these basic elements, with patience and careful planning, can be combined into a powerful and valuable structure—not unlike a child’s castle made of simple wooden blocks.

Case in point: I recently attended a one-on-one meeting with my 6-year old’s primary school teacher. I had brought along my younger 4-year old daughter, so the teacher fetched some blocks for my daughter to play with while we talked.

The teacher said they were “wonderful blocks”, but as I looked into the box, I was distinctly unimpressed. Each block was light brown and exactly the same size (about half the size of a playing card, 1/5 inch (5mm) thick), and I failed to see anything wonderful about them.

The teacher, however, produced a catalogue containing photographs of castles, bridges, archways, towers and other complex structures, all built from these simple blocks. The pictures were truly amazing, and the blocks kept my daughter occupied for the next 30 minutes.

As project managers, you have simple boxes and lines with which to create your WBS. They too may seem very basic and uninteresting, but you can use these simple elements to create powerful, useful and very important structures to help manage your projects.

Just as there are guidelines you should follow to successfully build a castle out of blocks, there are guidelines to follow when constructing your WBS. Here are a few:

	WBS Guidelines	Block Castle Guidelines
1. Clear direction/definition	Make sure you have successfully completed your project initiation activities before embarking on a detailed WBS.	Have a clear understanding of what it is you’re about to build before you start. Trying to change from a castle to a bridge halfway through will be troublesome.
2. Appropriate level of complexity	Develop the WBS to an appropriate level of detail—one that provides the information you need to control the project, but doesn’t swamp you with data/information.	Building a castle using only 10 blocks might be quick, but it won’t be very useful. Alternatively, trying to build a 10,000 block version of Edinburgh Castle will probably consume more time than you realistically have available.
3. Team work	The content of the WBS should be mostly provided by your project team and key project stakeholders – not by the project manager.	If you recruit your family to build the castle, with your help and direction, they are more likely to appreciate the end result, and less likely to knock it down when you’re not looking.
4. Completeness	The WBS should describe the work of your whole project. And there shouldn’t be anything in the WBS that isn’t part of your project.	Make sure you build all of the castle’s features, as one with only three walls isn’t very effective. And castles generally don’t have swimming pools – so don’t include one in your castle floor plan.
5. Accuracy	When documenting the detailed boxes (children) underneath a WBS element (parent), the children must completely and exactly describe the same amount of work as the parent, just in more detail.	Make sure the first floor of your castle is complete and well-aligned – otherwise it will not support the blocks that comes later, and you’ll be left with all your floors combined into one.

So remember:

Just because the elements of a WBS are simple, it doesn’t mean the result isn’t a powerful structure.
Constructing a WBS that will effectively stand the test of time requires some preparation, patience and a few basic rules – just like a block castle.

Kevin has a checklist he uses to reminder himself of these WBS guidelines, and others, at www.consulting.ky/templates.php. (The checklist only works for WBS though – not block castles.)

Kevin Archbold, PMI-SP, PMP, has 20 years of project management experience with large and small organizations in various industries including automotive, nuclear power, telecommunications, trucking, IT, human resources, biotech, and government. Mr. Archbold has been a member of PMI since 1991, serves as the current President of the PMI Tucson, Arizona Chapter, and since 1999 has been a project management consultant and trainer through Key Consulting. He welcomes your questions and comments.

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