What is a 'Work Breakdown Structure'?

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Organize your team’s tasks and deliverables with a clear Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). As one of the most important project management tools, WBS helps to engineer and visualize the Who’s and the What’s with easy-to-follow tiers and hierarchies. WBS help project managers identify key activities and resources to make successful deliverables.

The traditional phase-based WBS applies a hierarchical approach to project activities to help you prioritize tasks. Elaborate on key activities with a mini progress tracker to hone in on additional details across tasks. A deliverable-based WBS zooms in on what resources are needed for each deliverable across work sections and activities.

The first step in the development of a project schedule defines the work to be completed and in what order to achieve the goals of the project. A good Work Breakdown Structure can also work the other way around. It allows a project manager to work backward and identify the exact steps and components needed if they already have a goal for final deliverables.

A well-constructed WBS can help the entire project management process, extending to project-related decisions like cost-benefit analysis, how to allocate resources, and project risk assessment.