


Step 1: List your project's high-level deliverables That’s right, the work breakdown structure will be your friend.īut before you go off and start creating a WBS (and on-point estimates), let’s walk through a process that will help ensure a solid, workable estimate. When you’re comfortable with the overall process of creating a work breakdown structure, you’ll be able to adapt the practice to any project-from moving your house to building a complex database with 75 offshore teams.
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How to create a work breakdown structure to estimate projects If you estimate your projects based on units-whether it’s weeks, days, or hours-using a work breakdown structure will help you understand very quickly if your estimate will exceed the intended budget or deadline. Asking questions, analyzing needs, and breaking your scope down into chunks can help.Ĭreating a work breakdown structure for any plan or set of tasks helps you get granular about the work that needs to be done on any given project. But creating a project estimate doesn’t have to cause you heartburn. There’s no doubt about it: Estimating projects can be confusing and somewhat difficult. It’s a helpful tool that defines a detailed cost or time estimate and provides guidance for schedule development and control. It’s a simple, yet methodical, way of organizing and understanding your project scope in smaller, manageable components.Įssentially, using a work breakdown structure enables you to take a top-down look at your project and break it into the tasks and subtasks that will get you to completion. A work breakdown structure (WBS) is a fixture in classic project management methodology and systems engineering that breaks a project down into a hierarchy of deliverables and tasks.
