Practice Standard for Work Breakdown Structures - Third Edition

2

CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES

2.1 OVERVIEW

Making a project more manageable requires breaking it down into individual components (subcomponents) that together are known as a WBS. The WBS is a hierarchical structure that defines unique work elements arranged and completed during the project sequentially, in parallel, or in the specific order necessary to accomplish project outcomes. The WBS facilitates other project management processes and activities, such as make-or-buy analysis, stakeholder identification, time and cost estimating, scheduling, resource allocation, risk analysis, measurement, and control of the project.

The work breakdown structure (WBS) defines:

• W = Work. Sustained physical or mental effort, actions performed by automated processes, ...