Subtitles of the Movie

In the previous movie we looked closely at the Work Breakdown Structure, or WBS. I'd like to further expand on the WBS by telling you about something called the WBS Dictionary and also explain the benefits of the WBS. Let's start with the WBS Dictionary. As you saw, the WBS is more of a graphical high level view of the decomposed deliverables. It didn't contain much information but was very specific aside, of course, from visually reflecting the decomposition of the deliverables, their existing relationships and the unique identifiers assigned to each component. We'll need a place to document all of the specifics about each of these WBS components and that's where the WBS Dictionary comes in. It's a document that describes each Work Package within the WBS, documenting the specifics about them. So, for instance, if you wanted to know more about Component 2.3.3.1, you can look it up in the Dictionary. Common items included within the WBS Dictionary are: the code of account identifier; description of the WBS component; scheduled activities, which we'll identify later; cost estimates; criteria for acceptance; resources; responsible organization; associated milestones; and the list can go on. Clearly we don't have all of this information yet so we'll continue to update the WBS Dictionary as the information becomes available and known. This is a great reference document to have available and it should be accessible to all of your team members as needed. Now, let's look at the benefits of having a good WBS along with a good WBS Dictionary. First, it offers clear big-picture view of the project. It allows everyone to better understand the magnitude of the project and what it entails. From my experience, customers are always in all of the planning nature of the project after being shown a WBS. It's a great communication tool for the team, for the customers and really, all of your stakeholders and that's because it reflects 100 percent of the scope. It helps to ensure that nothing is missed. Seeing all of the decomposed deliverables at a glance is great in that sense. It also helps you help get team buy-in, getting their feedback in building the WBS alone is important to obtaining their buy-in. It also helps the team understand how their work fits into the overall work of the project. Now that you understand more about the WBS including its benefits, let's talk more about the processes that will use the WBS. Remember that it reflects 100 percent of the Project Scope. It becomes an important planning document for this reason. I mentioned that the lowest level of the WBS is the Work Package Level. The next step after this is the first step at creating the Schedule. That means that activity planning efforts rely heavily on that WBS. We'll also use the WBS when estimating and reporting on costs through the Control Accounts. We'll use it to help us in making sure that we consider every component of risk. We'll come back to it when planning out quality as well as within the procurement processes. As you can see, the WBS is an important document to have for many reasons and it serves many uses providing not just the project manager and the project team with benefits, but also benefitting the customer. And that concludes this review of the Work Breakdown Structure.