Chapter 7: Organizing Activities Using Project WBS

Overview

The Project WBS function is used to group and summarize activities under a hierarchical structure in the same way as the WBS function in P3 and SureTrak. It is similar to Outlining in Microsoft Project, however in Primavera Contractor the Activities are assigned to a hierarchical WBS Node and not demoted under a Parent Task. The WBS structure is used to organize and summarize your project activities during planning, scheduling and statusing of Projects.

The project should be granulated (broken down) into manageable areas by using a project breakdown structure based on attributes of the project such as the Phases or Stages, Systems and Subsystems, Processes, Disciplines or Trades, and Areas or Locations of work. These headings are normally the basis of the project breakdown structure, are used to create the Primavera Contractor WBS structure, and should present the most useful view of your project.

Defining the project breakdown structure may be a major task for project managers. Primavera Contractor does not include the Methodology function, more commonly called project templates, which is a predefined standard breakdown implemented to all new projects, however various components of existing projects may be copied across to substitute as a template.

Primavera Contractor also has an Activity Code function similar to the Activity Code function in Primavera P3 and SureTrak software and the Custom Outline Codes in Microsoft Project 2003. This feature allows the grouping of activities...