A Work Breakdown Structure is a clever and visually appealing project management tool. One example with great aesthetics is the WBS Gantt chart for Jira. There are several reasons to create a Work Breakdown Structure for your business, and let’s discuss these.
It is a visual representation of the entire workload of the project
If you haven’t incorporated a Work Breakdown Structure into your project management, you may be wasting precious time and energy simply keeping track of everything that needs to be done. With a Work Breakdown Structure, you have something so much more helpful than a standard to-do list.
Most WBS software is highly-customizable, either with the included features or with plug-ins, so a WBS can be optimized to suit the needs of any organization. Projects can be organized by deliverables or phases and then broken down into tasks and subtasks.
The process of creating the work breakdown structure can be helpful for brainstorming
As you and your team create the WBS structure, you’ll need to make many decisions and think about the scope and purpose of the project. You’ll need to take the big picture and break it down into milestones. You’ll have to envision the outcome and decide what tasks and subtasks need to be accomplished to get there.
So, incorporating a WBS can be a launching point for brainstorming. Your team may realize a more straightforward way to accomplish some of the deliverables, or this process may spark creative and innovative ideas related to the project phases.
Abstract ideas become tangible milestones
A Work Breakdown Structure is a tool for making the abstract concrete. Most large projects start with a vague idea. For example: Increase sales on x product. But it wouldn’t be effective to tell your team, “Increase sales on this product.” A practical goal is one with clear steps.
Creating a WBS involves a process called “decomposition.” This means breaking goals down into milestones, breaking those down into smaller tasks, and then breaking those down into subtasks. This process is repeated until it no longer makes sense to keep breaking up tasks or subtasks.
Everything is all in one spot
Tasks, deliverables, costs, budget, and everything related to the project are all in one spot. You can easily see how each facet of the project refers to another.
There is less of a chance of missing deadlines with Gantt charts
Since every milestone is broken down into tasks and subtasks, the impact of a missed deadline is very visual. Gantt charts can be easily incorporated into a Work Breakdown Structure. While the WBS breaks down the tasks themselves, a Gantt chart will break down the schedule for those tasks.
A team member who struggles with productivity may be less inclined to give in to distractions if they have a flowchart in front of them, making it clear that if they miss their deadline, this will cause someone else to miss their deadline.
Project managers and team leads can also be proactive with a visual organization tool. They can keep tabs on tasks and subtasks and get involved when team members fall behind on goals. They can redistribute tasks, add more people to the team, or even consider restructuring elements of the project. The main takeaway is that they have options. Everything can be seen at a glance. Depending on the nature of the tasks, they may even be linked directly to the actual work being completed, so project managers can check how the work is progressing on an ongoing basis.
Everyone is on the same page
A complicated project with many different teams can become confusing and stressful fast. Excellent communication and organization are the cure, and a superb Work Breakdown Structure is the perfect tool.
Sometimes a business or organization might be involved in a complex project with multiple teams working on different goals and skillsets. A marketing campaign might involve an art team, a copywriting team, a distribution team, a social media team, and others. They all have the same goal: to ensure a successful campaign, but each is working on a different component. With a Work Breakdown Structure, communication is more straightforward because each team has a clear picture of the final deliverables.
A work breakdown structure makes distributing work much easier
Without great organization tools, project managers can lose track of how much each team member is doing. Every task may be accounted for, but the project manager may not realize that they’ve given far too heavy a workload to some team members while other team members could be doing more.
A WBS makes it simple to see exactly what is on each team member’s plate. If each task is estimated and compared against deadlines, project managers can redistribute work, thereby preventing missed deadlines and employee burnout before they happen.
An extensive WBS could even be customized with each team member’s areas of specialty, preferred tasks, and tasks they’ve completed successfully before.
A WBS makes it easy to identify obstacles
A budget that is too small or a team without the right expertise becomes glaringly apparent when it’s right in front of you on a Work Breakdown Structure. As you use the WBS tools to plan out your milestones and allocate budget and resources, problems can be identified early on, and project managers can find ways to solve these problems or reconsider the project’s scope.
So, should you be using WBS in your business?
The answer is yes. Any business or organization can benefit from greater organization and communication, and at its core, that is what a WBS is. It’s a way to organize a project, delegate tasks, and communicate small and large goals to everyone on your team.
