work breakdown structure (wbs) management of engineering project management
TRANSCRIPT
Terms and Definitions
Project Charter A document authorizing the project manager to
initiate and lead the project.
Project Creep The tendency for the project scope to expand
over time due to changing requirements, specifications, and priorities.
Establishing Project Priorities
Causes of Project Trade-offs Shifts in the relative importance of criterions
related to cost, time, and performance parameters. Also, called triple constraint
Budget– Cost Schedule– Time Performance– Scope
The Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
The WBS picture a project subdivided into hierarchical units of tasks, subtasks, work packages, etc.
The outcome of this hierarchical process is called the work breakdown structure (WBS).
The WBS is a map of the project.
Creating the WBS
Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) Defines the relationship of the final
deliverable (the project) to its subdeliverables, and in turn, their relationships to work packages.
Basically, the WBS is an outline of the project with different levels of detail.
subdeliverable is further divided into work packages. Because the lowest subdeliverable usually includes several work packages.
the work packages are grouped by type of work—for example, hardware, programming, testing.
These groupings within a sub deliverable are called cost accounts. This grouping facilitates a system for monitoring project progress by work, cost, and responsibility.
The Work Breakdown Structure
The WBS is an important document and can be tailored for use in a number of different ways
It may illustrate how each piece of the project contributes to the whole in terms of performance, responsibility, schedule, and budget
It may list the vendors or subcontractors associated with specific tasks
The Work Breakdown Structure
It may serve as the basis for making cost estimates or estimates of task duration
It may be used to document that all parties have signed off on their various commitments to the project
Deliverables
There are many deliverables in a project. Well defined deliverables eliminate scope
creep.
Deliverables
Deliverables are the results produced by tasks.
For example, in house constructions deliverables could be the house foundation, walls, roof, and electrical work, etc.
Integrating WBS with the organization Organizational Breakdown Structure (OBS)
Depicts how the firm is organized to discharge its work responsibility for a project.
Identifies organization units responsible for work packages.
Ties the organizational units to cost control accounts.
Coding the WBS for the Information System WBS Coding System
Defines: Levels and elements of the WBS Organization elements Work packages Budget and cost information
Allows reports to be consolidated at any level in the organization structure
The most commonly used scheme in practice is numeric indention.
WBSA badly designed WBS can result in: Incomplete project definition. Missed deadlines on deliverables or timeline slippage. Budget cost overruns. Frequently changing scope Unusable product Failure to deliver on some aspects of project scope
Develop a WBS for a project in which you are going to build a bicycle. Try to identify all of the major components and provide three levels of detail.
(Exercise- Page -122)