The Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is the document that translates your objectives into a list of specific and concrete activities or tasks the project menu, if you like. Its purpose is to:

• ensure that every aspect of the project has been covered adequately and that there are no gaps

• enable detailed resource planning

• allocate responsibilities for tasks to specific individuals or groups.

The process can start within the project team with a brainstorm. Draw on their expertise they know the work they do and what is involved better than anyone else.

Make a list of every possible activity that you can think of that will be needed to carry out the project. Your project will of course be unique, but there may have been a similar one, perhaps involving one of your team, whose WBS you can use for guidance.

The next stage is to group the activities together logically into a series of phases or stages, which will broadly follow the timetable of the project.

One possible way of doing this is set out in Figure 3.1. This demonstrates the way that project activities are grouped together and can be broken down into different levels.

Figure 3.1: Part of a Work Breakdown Structure

The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex, overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks then starting on the first one.

Mark Twain (1835-1910)

Some activities tend to...