The Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is a major tool for visualizing, designing, planning, and controlling the management of a project. The input for the WBS is the previously developed definition of what the project is and what shall be achieved (Project Overview Statement, requirements and system specification, see module 2). The WBS breaks down the “bundle of work” of the project to work packages and activities (or tasks). Please mind that the notation of the different levels of this hierarchy can be different.

A WBS can be developed using a top-down or bottom-up approach – in terms of

• “how” (starting on the top-level of work packages, broken down into one or several lower-level activities vs. grouping low-level activities to upper-level activities and work packages)
• “who” (performed by the project manager vs. a team-orientation).

The WBS provides the basis for an estimation of required project resources:

1. Duration (of activities and overall)
2. Personnel and other resources, e.g., facilities, equipment, materials
3. Finances/cost.

Project activities do not typically follow each other sequentially, but are running in parallel or partly in parallel. This has to be planned within the project schedule. Scheduling an activity depends on one or several preceding activities. Two common tools for representing and planning project schedules are Gantt charts and network diagrams.

The preliminary WBS, estimated project resources, and project schedule have to be verified against the available personnel resources – these resources have to be leveled. More detailed project planning is required on the micro-level. “Micro” means, in this case, to break down the activities to the very lowest level and align the activities with concrete persons, dates, responsible persons, descriptions of work, and other information. Wysocki suggests two tools

• Work package assignment sheet
• Work package description report.

Other templates might be appropriate as well (compare provided examples of an EC project).

Before you proceed with the following module, please answer the self-test questions for this module, implemented on the e-Learning platform.