Work Breakdown Structure

The Work Breakdown Structure is a hierarchical decomposition of the total scope of work to be carried out by the project team to accomplish the project objectives and create the required deliverables. The WBS is a key tool that can be used by PMs to define and manage scope, it is used to break down a project into smaller workable sections (work packages)

A WBS can be represented as a hierarchical tree diagram

Based on the complexity of the project the hierarchical tree could have more or less levels

Our WBS can also be represented as an outline

1         Project

1.1         Deliverable

1.1.1        Work Package

1.1.1.1         Activity A

1.1.1.2         Activity B

1.1.1.3         Activity C

1.1.2        Work Package

1.1.2.1         Activity D

1.1.2.2         Activity E

1.1.2.3         Activity F

1.1.2.4         Activity G

1.1.3        Work Package

1.1.3.1         Activity H

1.1.3.2         Activity I

1.2         Deliverable

1.2.1        Work Package

1.2.1.1         Activity J

1.2.2        Work Package

1.2.2.1         Activity K

1.2.2.2         Activity L

Both represent the same work breakdown structure.

Activities
When defining activities which represent the work that needs to be completed at a granular level within a WBS the order of each activity is the order it should be completed in. The rule of thumb for activities is that they should represent 1 to 2 weeks worth of effort for 1 resource, if they're out side of the 5 to 10 working day range then either they are too granular or too broad.