The concept of a work breakdown structure (WBS) is widely used to represent the project’s scope and deliverables in a hierarchical way.
Sometimes the structure may seem confusing for beginners who are new to project management. Therefore it’s crucial for any project manager to always have a reliable work breakdown structure example at hand.
In this post, we share some simple work breakdown structure examples that will help you to deconstruct your project production processes in different spheres into manageable components.
Contents:
The graphical nature of a WBS is typically visualized as a result-oriented tree that covers all project procedures in an organized way. This is what differentiates WBS from other project management charts.
A tree view is not the only representation of a work breakdown structure. You can also find examples of creating a WBS in the form of a horizontal hierarchical list, which is most successfully visualized by a Gantt chart.
This kind of WBS creator provides a convenient system with the numbering of tasks and subtasks. The essence of the breakdown is essentially the same, but the representations are different. You’ll see this in more detail in the examples below.
A work breakdown structure is the foundation of project planning alongside a Gantt diagram. Therefore, to improve your PM skills, it’d be also good for you to know how to read a Gantt chart.
Project managers apply these two approaches to divide complex projects to get things done faster and efficiently. Breaking their projects down into smaller parts means that work can be performed simultaneously by different employees. It boosts productivity and improves project management.
There are many examples, templates, and project management tools that assist in creating a visually appealing work breakdown structure. Let’s dive into some common samples from various spheres that will allow you to select the best WBS work breakdown structure example for your needs.
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Choosing a project work breakdown structure example
A work breakdown structure can be different for each project. Trying to find the most appropriate example of a work breakdown structure in project management, you should spend some time experimenting and see which WBS performs best for your team. There is no need to rush here, as the result of the entire project will depend on your choice.
You’ve probably heard about how to make a WBS in Excel. You can also find a project work breakdown structure example visualized with the help of a flowchart, or a spreadsheet, or can create a Gantt chart online. However, the main idea is to visualize the hierarchy of your projects and make progress clear to everyone involved.
For example, you have a project that consists of two global parts or key tasks. These tasks will contain certain subtasks that must be followed strictly one by one. These subtasks can also have a list of activities in a smaller hierarchy. All this makes up a WBS structure.
This project management work breakdown structure example can be easily built with the help of an online Gantt chart. This way is one of the most reliable and demanded among modern project managers.
The diagram will include both your project work hierarchy and a timeline. Therefore, you will be able to link task dependencies, mark milestones, and track when each activity is supposed to start and end.
It means that using any available work breakdown structure in the project management example, you’ll be able to generate your own WBS without a headache.
Now it’s time to list some common cases where you can apply WBS.
You can actually read about it in the full version of this article: https://blog.ganttpro.com/en/work-breakdown-structure-example-wbs/.
