Hair Spa Website Project: Breaking Down the Work

A WBS is a deliverable-oriented document formatted with a family-tree-like hierarchy that breaks the project down into smaller, more easily manageable sub-projects. No deliverable in the project is left out of the WBS. Likewise, the project team does not produce any deliverable not itemized in the WBS. The WBS contributes to the project success by serving as a single, comprehensive point of reference for project contributors (PMI, 2008). The WBS gives the entire project team the same perspective, keeps them aware of their individual responsibilities, and aware of their task’s relationship to the main project.

The second level is the specific project at hand, the Hair Spa Website project. The third level in the WBS includes six sub-projects, from 2. 1. 0 Pre-Evaluation to 2. 6. 0 Post Evaluation.

The fourth level lists the work packages of the corresponding sub-project. Work packages are not explicit; the work should be standard operation for the parties that will perform it (Kerzner, 2009). A WBS dictionary breaks the work down in more detail. The figure at the beginning of this section explain how the components are organized.

Codes- In this WBS, the codes that precede each level show its hierarchy relationship to the project (PMI, 2008).All work associated with the Preliminary Evaluation deliverable begin with 2. 1, and all work in the Web Design deliverable begin with 2. 2.

These are all part of project 2. If there was another major project in the marketing program, that project would be in the second level with the website project, but its coding might be “3. 0 Throw a Promotional Party. ” All codes in this project would begin with the same number as the relative project to indicate its the relationship. WBS normally contain documentation to explain the coding because the application of coding may vary between organizations (Kerzner, 2009).Cost and Time Allocations- At the fourth level, the WBS lists costs and schedules for each work package.

At the third level, the costs and schedule are listed with each sub-project. This is not a separate cost and time allocation, but a total summation of the costs and schedule of its corresponding work packages (PMI, 2008). Likewise, costs and schedules listed for the project in the second level are a sum of those for the sub-projects. Decomposing the project into sub-projects and work packages allows the PM to more accurately allocate project budget, resources, and schedule.

Responsible Parties- The work breakdown lists the individuals and parties responsible for completing the work packages and sub-projects. Relationship of Prior Process Documents to the WBS The documents from the previous processes are inputs to the WBS. The charter and stakeholder registrar established in initiating processes contains the program, the project purpose and stakeholders. It also contains a preliminary scope and budget, the skeleton around which the project builds the WBS. The project management plan, requirements document, and scope from the planning process group more clearly determine what work will be included in the WBS.

The time and budget become more realistic after decomposing the project to create a WBS (PMI, 2008). Organizational assets revealed in earlier processes also play a role. Its possible the requesting organization or project affiliates already have processes and layouts for creating the WBS, or any of the project work. Conclusion: Justification of this WBS Approach The right WBS gives a comprehensive overview of all the work needed to complete the project (Kerzner, 2009).

This WBS used previous process documents and a chronological approach to organize the sub-projects and work packages.Sometimes the sub-projects and work packages overlap, but there is still a necessary order of operations for on the deliverables. Either way, its easy to identify the work, the relationship of the work, the costs, the schedule, and the responsible parties. That is all the necessary justification for using any approach.

References Kerzner, H. (2009). Project management: A systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling (10th ed. ). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Project Management Institute. (2008). A guide to the project management body of knowledge (PMBOK® guide) (4th ed. ). Newton Square, PA: Author.