What is a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)?

As a Business Analyst for a custom software development company for four years, I commonly created documents called “WBS'' which were important during the planning and definition of a client’s software development project. While many people have never heard of this concept, it is something that can be useful for a variety of applications, both outside, but particularly inside, the software industry.

What is a WBS?

A Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is pretty much exactly what it sounds like: a diagram or document detailing all of the different facets required within a project’s scope — or put more simply, an outline of the pieces or tasks (i.e. work) needed to complete a project. WBS are commonly seen either as a form of flow chart or as tabular spreadsheets like Excel.

How are WBS used?

Most traditionally, WBS are used in project management as a tool to help divide work among team members, but their use extends way beyond this. For example, at my former company we often drafted these documents while calculating preliminary estimates for customer projects. We would detail the components and work required for every feature to establish the project in order to narrow down both the scope of the project and our estimation range. While our application of WBS included a high level of detail, other work breakdown structures are much more simple.

The level of detail does not mean one version is better or worse. As stated before, WBS are highly versatile and should be applied however one sees fit. Overall, the goal of the document is to help manage larger, complex systems, by deconstructing it into reasonable, and often sequential, pieces; this is great for things such as projects, events, or long-term goals. In fact, we are even using one for planning my best friend’s wedding that will be in 2024!

What is the benefit of a WBS?

I understand that there may be skepticism for some of those who have made it to this point. You “I’ve got the general gist of what needs to be done. Why do I need to go through the effort of creating a spreadsheet or diagram when I can jot a few things down if I need to?,” you may ask. First, have you ever told yourself that you’d remember some item when you go to the store, so you didn’t need to write it down, and then you forgot to get the item? Writing a shopping list may not be our favorite thing to do, but if you write the list ahead of time, you may realize other things you need, you’ll have a more complete picture of your current inventory, and it’ll save you time, money, and stress because you’ll be less likely to overlook or forget things that you then may have to double back for.

This shopping list concept can be extended to WBS. In the case of writing WBS for customer estimates that was mentioned above, going through the process of detailing all the features of a product reinforced that we consider all the ways the software may be interacted with and how it should be handled. The benefits of this included the following:

The WBS acted as a form of functional checklist that could be reviewed and revised depending on the client’s vision, and could be used as a reference document for all parties working on the project, which should help ensure everyone shared the same vision for the app.
The more areas of the project were clarified, the less risk there would be of functional behavior being unknown or misinterpreted, which could ultimately turn into additional time (and cost) spent clarifying or fixing implementation errors, once development has started.
Some anticipated challenges or issues may have been identified during this time, which could save cost and time for development.

So much like a shopping list, the effort of drafting a form of work breakdown structure, helps better prepare us for our endeavor, and most likely prevents us from having to unnecessarily double back for that item we’ve forgotten. Depending on the situation, the monetary and time savings alone could be worthwhile.

A Brief Conclusion

While not always necessary, Work Breakdown Structures can be a good tool to know about for the right instances. I hope that this was informative and that it is helpful in the event you find yourself using WBS at some point in the future!