Work Breakdown Structure

TUM
Work Breakdown Structures

16 May 2006 Bernd Bruegge Technische Universitt Mnchen Institut fr Informatik Lehrstuhl fr Angewandte Softwaretechnik http://wwwbruegge.in.tum.de
Copyrig ht 2006 Bernd Brueg g e
Software Eng ineering II, Lecture 3: Work Breakdown Structures
Where are we?
In the last lecture we focused on general software project management issues and conguration management
How do we structure a project? How do we deal with change? We introduced the SPMP and SCMP
We now focus on specic software management issues

Decomposition of work (WBS) What are the units of tasks that need to be done? Project Estimation What resources (people, $) do we need for each of these tasks? Project Organization Who is doing these tasks? Scheduling How long does it take to nish them?
Schedule for next 4 Classes

Today lecture: Decomposition of work Tomorrows exercise: WBS Exercise (Advanced Home Dispatch Project) Project Manager: Johannes Bross, Accenture May 23-24 Lecture and Exercise on estimation May 30-31 Lecture and Exercise on project organization June 7-8 No lecture and no exercise June 13-14 Lecture and Exercise on scheduling
Copyrig ht 2006 Bernd Brueg g e Software Eng ineering II, Lecture 3: Work Breakdown Structures
Outline of Todays Lecture

Handout for tomorrows exercise Determining Work and Tasks Sizes Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) Different Approaches for developing WBSs Notations for Work Breakdown Structures Heuristics and examples for WBS
Starting with templates How to identify work What do you do with risky tasks?
Using WBS in large projects

How detailed should a WBS be? How can you plan the tasks of a long project when things are unknown or changing all the time?
Tomorrows Exercise
Advanced Developer Telecommuting Project

Increase developer productivity by allowing them to work at home. Objectives Developers receive orders via a work assignment system Develop a new reporting mechanism for this process Train developers and supervisors for this process.
2 Handouts
Problem Statement from client Project Agreement from client
Problem Statement: Advanced Developer Telecommuting Project
Background
Arena Services recently merged with Asteroids Games
Project
Advanced Developer Telecommuting project
Goal
Increase developer productivity and reduce overhead costs
Objectives
Complete project within budget, provide training materials Establish procedures for managing telecommuting developers, tracking laptop usage, how to run weekly meetings Produce training materials for task assignment workflow, work product delivery, compliance reporting
Constraints
Procedures and materials must comply with legal laws and labor relations
Tomorrows Exercise: Project Agreement

Project Description Key Tasks Job Roles and Titles Estimated Schedule for Delivery Deliverables High level Work Segments (Work breakdown structure)
Dependencies
Assumptions Budget Invoices and Billing Information

What is the problem?

Your boss: How long will this take? You: Between 1 and 6 months.
As long as I can do it within 6 months, I keep my promise.
With hard work, he can do it in 1 month.
What is the problem?

Your boss: How long will this take? You: Between 1 and 6 months.
I have not the slightest clue, if it is possible at all.
Even if it is possible, I dont know, how long it will take.
Solution: Use divide and conquer

To give a good answer you break the work down into activities for which you try to get timing estimates Only if you can get good estimates can you compute the estimated project duration.
Activities to obtain good time estimates
Identify the work that needs to be done

Work breakdown structure (WBS), SPMP Section 5. 1
Identify the dependency between work units

Dependency Graph, SPMP Section 5.2
Estimate the duration of the work to be done

Schedule, SPMP Section 5.5.
10
Software Project Management Plan

0. Front Matter 1. Introduction 2. Project Organization (Lecture on May 30) 3. Managerial Process 4. Technical Process 5. Work Elements, Schedule, Budget 5.1 Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) (Today) 5.2 Dependencies between tasks (Today) 5.3 Resource Requirements (Lecture on May 23) 5. 4 Budget (Lecture on May 23) 5.5 Schedule (Lecture on June 13) Optional Inclusions
11
Software Project Management Plan

0. Front Matter 1. Introduction 2. Project Organization (Lecture on May 30) 3. Managerial Process 4. Technical Process 5. Work Elements, Schedule, Budget 5.1 Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) (Today) 5.2 Dependencies between tasks (Today) 5.3 Resource Requirements (Lecture on May 23) 5. 4 Budget (Lecture on May 23) 5.5 Schedule (Lecture on June 13) Optional Inclusions
12
Lets Build a House
What are the activities that are needed to build a house?
13
First Step: Identify the work to be done

Surveying Excavation Request Permits Buy Material Lay foundation Build Outside Wall Install Exterior Plumbing Install Exterior Electrical Install Interior Plumbing Install Interior Electrical
Install Wallboard Paint Interior Install Interior Doors Install Floor Install Roof Install Exterior Doors Paint Exterior Install Exterior Siding Buy Pizza
Finding these tasks initially is a brainstorming activity Similar to activities used during requirements elicitation and analysis.
14
Second Step: Hierarchically organize the Work
Building the house consists of

Prepare the building site Building the Exterior Building the Interior
Activity
Preparing the building site consists of

Surveying Excavation Buying of material Laying of the foundation Requesting permits
Sub-Activity or Task
Finding this hierarchy involves categorization and renement. Good after brainstorming, not during brainstorming
15
Third Step: Identify Dependencies between Work
The work breakdown structure does not show any dependence among activities/tasks
Can we excavate before getting the permit? How much time do I need for the whole project, if I know the individual times? What can be done in parallel? Are there any critical actitivites, that can signicantly slow down the project?
Dependencies like these are shown in the dependency graph

Nodes are activities Lines represent temporal dependencies.
16
Building a House (Dependency Graph)

The activity Buy Material must precede the activity Lay foundation
Install Inter ior Plumbing Install Inter ior Electr ical Install Wallboar d
Paint Inter ior
Install Floor ing Lay Founda tion
Install Inter ior Door s
START
Sur vey ing
Ex cava tion
Buy Mater ial
Build Outside Wall
FINISH Install Roong Install Ex ter ior Door s
Request Paint Ex ter ior
Install Ex ter ior Plumbing
Install Ex ter ior Electr ical
Install Ex ter ior Siding
17
Fourth step: Map the Work onto Time

Estimate starting times and durations for each of the tasks in the dependency graph Compute the longest path through the graph: This is the estimated duration of your project.
18
Building a House (Schedule, PERT Chart)

Each Activity has a start time and an estimated duration
12/ 3/ 94 12/ 21/ 94 1/ 11/ 95 Install Wallboar d 0 9 1/ 22/ 95 Paint Inter ior 0 11 1/ 22/ 95 2/ 8/ 95 Install Inter ior Door s 0 7 2/ 16/ 95 FINISH 1/ 19/ 95 0 Install 0 Ex ter ior Door s 15 6 Install Inter ior Plumbing 0 12 0 15 Install Inter ior Electr ical
Install Floor ing 8/ 27/ 94 8/ 27/ 94 9/ 17/ 94 10/ 1/ 94 START 0 0 Sur vey ing 12 3 8/ 27/ 94 Request Per mits 0 15 12/ 3/ 94 Star t Time 8/ 29/ 94 Legend Dur ation Slack Time Copyrig ht 2006 Bernd Brueg g e 0 0 12 10 12/ 17/ 94 12/ 31/ 94 Install Ex ter ior Siding 12 8 1/ 12/ 95 Paint Ex ter ior 12 5 Install Ex ter ior Plumbing Install Ex ter ior Electr ical 12 10 Ex cava tion 0 10 10/ 15/ 94 11/ 5/ 94 Build Outside Wall 0 20 1/ 19/ 95 Lay Founda tion 0 15 0 18
Buy Mater ial 0 10
Install Roong 12 9
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How do we get good Estimates?

Estimation of starting times and durations is crucial for setting up a plan In the lecture on scheduling we will discuss methods and heuristics on how to do it and how to establish a software project schedule First let us learn a few more technical terms dened in the SPMP IEEE Std 1058.
20
Recall Denitions from Lecture 1
Project:
A Project has a duration and consists of functions, activities and tasks
Work Package:
A description of the work to be accomplished in an activity or task
Work Product:
Any tangible item that results from a project function, activity or task
Project Baseline:
A work product that has been formally reviewed and agreed upon can only be changed through a formal change procedure
Project Deliverable:
A work product to be delivered to the customer.
21
Activities, Tasks and Functions
Activity: A a major unit of work with precise dates that consists of smaller activities or tasks
Culminates in a project milestone
Task: Smallest unit of work subject to management

Small enough for adequate planning and tracking Large enough to avoid micro management
Project Function: An activity or set of activities that span the duration of the project.
22
Tasks
Smallest unit of management accountability

Atomic unit of planning and tracking Tasks have nite duration, need resources, produce tangible result (documents, code)
The description of a task is done in a work package

Name, description of work to be done Preconditions for starting, duration, required resources Other work packages that need to be completed before this task can be started Work products to be produced, acceptance criteria for it Risk involved
Completion criteria
Includes the acceptance criteria for the work products (deliverables) produced by the task.
23
Determining Task Sizes
Finding the appropriate task size is problematic

Todo lists and templates from previous projects During initial planning a task is necessarily large You may not know how to decompose the problem into tasks at rst Each software development activitity identies more tasks and modies existing ones
Tasks must be decomposed into sizes that allow monitoring

Depends on nature of work and how well task is understood Work package usually corresponds to a well dened work assignment for one worker for a week Also called action item.
24
Work Breakdown Structure
Work Breakdown Structure
Work
Task
Activity
Work Breakdown Structure: The aggregation of all the work to be performed in a project. Often called WBS.
25
Approaches to Develop Work Breakdown Structures
Product component approach

Structure the work based on the work products Examples: Design documents, manuals, delivered system
Functional approach
Structure the work based on development activities and project functions Examples: Analysis, design, implementation, integration
Geographical area approach

Structure the work based on geographical location Examples: Munich team, Pittsburgh team, off-shore team Structure the work based on the organizational structure Example: R&D department, predevelopment, product development, marketing, sales.
Organizational approach

26
When to use what Approach
The teams are distributed over the continent:

Geographical area approach
The teams consist of experienced developers:

Product component approach
The project has mostly beginners or an unexperienced project manager:

Functional approach
The project is a continuation of a previously successful project, there are no changes in the requirements and no new technology enablers
Organizational approach
Whatever approach you choose, stick with it to prevent possible overlap in categories.
27
Mixing different Approaches is bad

Consider the WBS for the activity Prepare report WBS using the functional approach:
Write draft report Have draft report reviewed Write nal report
WBS using the product component approach:

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Why is this bad?
WBS using a mixed approach:

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Have draft report reviewed Write nal report
28
How do you develop a good WBS?
Top down approach:

Start at the highest, top level activities and systematically develop increasing levels of detail for all activities
Bottom up approach (Brainstorming):

Generate all activities you can think of that will have to be done and then group them into categories
Which one you use depends on

how familiar you and your team are with the project, whether similar projects have successfully been performed in the past, and how many new methods and technologies will be used.
29
The Top Down WBS Development

Specify all activities required for the entire project Determine all tasks required to complete each activity If necessary, specify sub-activities required to complete each task Continue in this way until you have adequately broken down your project in doable tasks Approach is good if
You are familiar with the problem (or your team) You have successfully managed a similar project in the past You are not introducing new methodologies, methods or tools.
30
The Brainstorming WBS Development

On a single list, write any activities you think will have to be performed for your project Brainstorming:
Dont worry about overlap or level of detail Dont discuss activity wordings or other details Dont make any judgements Write everything down
Then study the list and group activities into a few major categories with common characteristics Group identied activities into higher level activities Consider each category you have created and use the top-down WBS development to determine any additional activities you may have overlooked.
31
Displaying Work Breakdown Structures

Three different formats are usually used Organization-chart format

Effectively portrays an overview of your project and the hierarchical relationships of different activities and tasks
Outline format
Subactivities and tasks are indented
Bubble format
The bubble in the center represents the project Lines from the center bubble lead to activities Lines from activities lead to tasks.
32
Prepare Report
Prepare Report
Prepare Final Report
Prepare Draft Report
Review Draft Report
1.0 Prepare draft report 2.0 Review draft report 3.0 Prepare nal report
3.1 Write nal report 3.2 Print nal report
Org-Chart Format
Write Final Report
Print Final Report
Outline Format
Review Draft Report
Review Final Report
Prepare Report
Write Final Report Print Final Report
33
Bubble Format
Review Draft Report
What is the best display format for WBS?
Organization-chart format:
Often good for a bird view of the project (executive summaries,...) Less effective for displaying large numbers of activities
Outline format:
Easier to read and understand if WBS contains many activities
Bubble format:
Effective for supporting brainstorming Not so good for displaying work breakdown structures to audiences who are not familiar with the project
In large projects:
Use bubble format to develop the WBS, then turn it into organization-chart or outline format. Display activities in organization-chart format, Display sub-activities and tasks in outline format.
34
Heuristics for developing high quality WBS
Involve the people who will be doing the work in the development of the WBS
In particular involve the developers
Review and include information from work breakdown structures that were developed for similar projects
Use a project template if possible
Use more than one WBS approach

Do project component and functional approach simultaneously This allows you often to identify overlooked activities
Make assumptions regarding uncertain activities

Identify risky activities These are often the activities whose times are hard to estimate.
35
Choose a single WBS Approach
Develop the WBS with different approaches. This is good, because it allows you to identify activities that you may overlook otherwise But then choose a single WBS approach to be used in the SPMP and for your project:
Nothing confuses people more than trying to use two different work breakdown structures to describe the same project.
36
How Detailed should the WBS be?
Sometimes the activities are not clear at all, especially if

The requirements are not clear and/or changing The software project depends on technology enablers that are promised to be available only after project kickoff Hardware and software are developed in parallel (concurrent engineering)
Heuristic: A project plan for 1 year - especially for an innovative software project - should not address details beyond 3 months
Even for the rst 3 months project activities might not all be clear at all, if the requirements are unclear, change and/or the introduction of technology enablers is expected
How should we describe a WBS for a longer project?

37
Doing a WBS for Long-Term Large-Scale Projects
When developing a work breakdown structure for a long-term project (longer than 3 months), introduce at least two phases Phase 1 (3 months): Plan your WBS in detail
List all activities and tasks that take a week or less to complete
Phase 2, Phase 3, (n-months) Plan the WBS for these phases in less and less detail
List activities that will take between one and two months
At the end of phase 1, revise phase 2 activities and plan them on the weekly level for the next 3 months
Modify future activities based on the results of your rst three months work
Continue to revise the SPMP this way throughout the project (The SPMP is an evolving document).
38
39
Phases in Large-Scale Projects

Project-Initiation Phase Steady State Phase

Initial Planning phase
Project-Termination Phase
40
Project-Initiation Phase: To-Do List
Activities
Meet with client, develop visionary scenario for problem statement Develop initial top level design: Describe system as a set of subsystems (subsystem decomposition) Establish stafng plan (at stafng, ramp up) Identify people: existing employees, new employees Hire team members Assign a subsystem to each team; establish additional crossfunctional teams (e.g. architecture, documentation, demo) Write problem statement (with client and other stake holders; if possible, involve project participants early) Write initial SPMP with WBS, without schedule, without budget Get project plan approved Kick project off with 2 documents: Problem statement and SPMP
Duration of project-initiation-phase: Between 2-4 weeks

When: Before project kickoff.
41
Initial Planning Phase: To-Do List
Activities
Do scouting on technology enablers that might inuence the design or nonfunctional requirements Revise requirements and initial top level design Revise team structure, reassign team members Revise WBS and dependencies Establish cost and scheduling information Agree with client on requirements, duration and cost of the project Write the project agreement (companion document to the SPMP)
Duration: About 2 weeks time When: After project kickoff, often called planning
In parallel to requirements elicitation
42
Project-Termination Phase
Do a project-review: What went right, what went wrong

also often called project post-mortem review
Based on input from the post-mortem session

Revise your software process, identify in particular any new activities that happened in the project Revise your project kickoff activities Revise the SPMP template (to be reused for your next project)
43
Where are we?

SPMP IEEE Std 1058 0. Front Matter 1. Introduction 2. Project Organization 3. Managerial Process 4. Technical Process 5. Work Elements, Schedule, Budget
5.1 Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) 5.2 Dependencies between tasks 5.3 Resource Requirements 5. 4 Budget ( => Lecture on cost estimation) 5.5 Schedule
Optional Inclusions
44
Readings
Literature used for this lecture

[IEEE Std 1058] Standard for Software Project Management Plans Stanley E Portny, Project Management for Dummies, Hungry Minds, 2001, ISBN 0-7645-5283-X [Bruegge-Dutoit 2000], Chapter 11 Project Management
45
Summary
Different approaches to develop a WBS

Product Approach Functional Approach Geographical Approach Organizational Approach
Top down and bottom up WBS development Heuristics for developing good WBS WBS for Large Projects
46
Additional Slides
47
Heuristic: Use Templates
Try to derive the SPMP from a template

A template reects the cumulative experience gained from doing numerous projects of a particular type Using templates can save you time and improve your accuracy
When developing templates, develop them for frequently performed tasks (reviews, meetings, ) Develop Checklists:
Develop and modify your WBS templates from previous projects that worked, not from plans that looked good Use templates as starting points, not as ending points Continually update your templates to reect the experience gained from performing different projects.
48
Heuristic: Develop always more than one WBS
Consider to create more several different hierarchies with different categories for your work breakdown structure.
Having two or more different perspectives helps you identify activities you may overlook
Good starting point are the following hierarchies:

Entity-oriented decomposition Activity-oriented decomposition
Example: You are running your rst object-oriented project.

Develop a WBS based on the project documents Develop a WBS based on the software process activities.
49
Heuristic: Identifying Risky activities

When you identify activities for a work breakdown structure, you can also identify the risks in your project Risks are usually associated with unknown information Unknown information comes in two avors
A known unknown: Information that you dont have but someone else does Find out who has the information and determine what the information is. (Interviews, phone calls, tasks analysis) An unknown unknown: Information that you dont have because it does not yet exist Develop contingency plans for each of these risks These contingency plans need be followed when you nd out the information does not exist
Describe these risks in SPMP 3.3 Risk Management.

50
Risk Management Examples
Risk: Members in key roles leave the project.

Contingency Plan? Roles are assigned to somebody else. Functionality of the system is renegotiated with the client.
Risk: The project is falling behind schedule.

Contingency Plan? Extra project meetings are scheduled.
Risk: Team 1 cannot provide functions needed by team 2.

Contingency Plan? A: We drop the functionality. B: The liaisons of both teams get together to solve this problem
Risk: The planned PDA will not be available.

Contingency Plan? We will use an IPAQ instead.
51
Risk Management Examples ctd
Risk: The selection of the database system takes too much time
Contingency Plan? The Database team uses a bridge pattern and provides a test stub to be used by the other teams for data access while the selection process goes on.
Risk: The customer is not available for discussing and reviewing the user interface during development.
Contingency Plan? Make the design decisions that we feel are appropriate
Risk: No suitable wireless library can be found.

Contingency Plan? The wireless team develops its own library
52
WBS Based on Project Documents (Entityoriented)

<<Name>> Project
Problem Statement
- Write Introduction - Write Requirements - Write Constraints - ...
Project Agreement
- Write Requirements - Write Constraints - Write Acceptance Criteria - Promise delivery date
RAD
SDD
- Write Introduction - Write Design Goals - Describe Functional - Write Hardware Model Software mapping - Describe Object Model -Write boundary - Describe Dynamic conditions Model - Write Data ... Management - Write Open Issues ...
53
WBS Based on Software Process (Activityoriented)

<<Name>> Project
Project Initiation
- Establish guidelines - Formulate requirements with client - Establish scenarios - Write project agreement
Planning
- Determine WBS - Determine dependencies between tasks - Write SPMP - Assign teams to subsystems - Establish project calendar
Analysis
- Brainstorm on application domain objects - Develop class diagram - Partition objects into boundary, entity and control objects - Develop use cases
Design
- Develop Models - Write code - Present problems to coach - Giove status reports - Write RAD - Write SDD - Write ODD
Question: Which activities mentioned in the WBS based on Project documents is left out in the WBS based on Software Process?
54
Estimates for establishing WBS
Establishing an WBS in terms of percentage of total effort:

Small project (7 person-month): at least 7% or 0.5 Person Months (PM) Medium project (300 person-month): at least 1% or 3 PMs Large project (7000 person-month): at least 0.2 % or 15 PMs Source: Barry Boehm, Software Economics (rather out-of-date)
55
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TUM

Work Breakdown Structures

Copyrig ht 2006 Bernd Brueg g e

Software Eng ineering II, Lecture 3: Work Breakdown Structures

Where are we?

We now focus on specic software management issues

Copyrig ht 2006 Bernd Brueg g e

Schedule for next 4 Classes

Outline of Todays Lecture

Using WBS in large projects

Advanced Developer Telecommuting Project

Copyrig ht 2006 Bernd Brueg g e

Software Eng ineering II, Lecture 3: Work Breakdown Structures

Problem Statement: Advanced Developer Telecommuting Project

Tomorrows Exercise: Project Agreement

Assumptions Budget Invoices and Billing Information

What is the problem?

With hard work, he can do it in 1 month.

Copyrig ht 2006 Bernd Brueg g e

Software Eng ineering II, Lecture 3: Work Breakdown Structures

What is the problem?

Even if it is possible, I dont know, how long it will take.

Solution: Use divide and conquer

Activities to obtain good time estimates

Identify the work that needs to be done

Identify the dependency between work units

Estimate the duration of the work to be done

Copyrig ht 2006 Bernd Brueg g e

Software Eng ineering II, Lecture 3: Work Breakdown Structures

Software Project Management Plan

Software Project Management Plan

Lets Build a House

What are the activities that are needed to build a house?

Copyrig ht 2006 Bernd Brueg g e

Software Eng ineering II, Lecture 3: Work Breakdown Structures

First Step: Identify the work to be done

Second Step: Hierarchically organize the Work

Building the house consists of

Preparing the building site consists of

Third Step: Identify Dependencies between Work

Dependencies like these are shown in the dependency graph

Copyrig ht 2006 Bernd Brueg g e

Software Eng ineering II, Lecture 3: Work Breakdown Structures

Building a House (Dependency Graph)

Paint Inter ior

Install Floor ing Lay Founda tion

Install Inter ior Door s

Sur vey ing

Buy Mater ial

Build Outside Wall

FINISH Install Roong Install Ex ter ior Door s

Request Paint Ex ter ior

Install Ex ter ior Plumbing

Install Ex ter ior Electr ical

Install Ex ter ior Siding

Copyrig ht 2006 Bernd Brueg g e

Software Eng ineering II, Lecture 3: Work Breakdown Structures

Fourth step: Map the Work onto Time

Copyrig ht 2006 Bernd Brueg g e

Software Eng ineering II, Lecture 3: Work Breakdown Structures