Schedule management: Downloading WBS sample

Hello. This is Irino, a strategy consultant. I was fortunate to get opportunities to experience various projects like a merger of more than 15,000 people a month, system development of more than 2,000 people a month and new business venture projects.

“Do you have a sample of WBS (Work breakdown structure)?”
I get this question often. I will summarize the points to keep in mind regarding preparing schedules and progress management. I will provide you a downloadable sample of WBS as well.

The positioning of Schedule and Progress management

1. Background of the project
2. Goal
3. Scope
4. Schedule
• Master schedule
• Project phase
• WBS (Work Breakdown Structure)
5. Project structure
• Organization chart
• Role
• Meeting structure
6. Project budget
• Cost estimates
• Quantitative effect
• Qualitative effect
7. Project management process
   • Progress management
   • Issue management
   • Quality control
   • Fault management
   • Document management
   • Risk management
   • Scope management/Change management
   • Budget management/Procurement management/Contract management
   • Management form sample etc.

The point of making Schedules and Progress management

I will write down the pitfalls and mistakes PM (project managers) or PMO (project management office) tend to go through when making schedules or managing progress from the standpoint of project management.

There are four types of dependences between tasks.

↓

I often come across WBS which only mention the Finish to Start type. It is good to see. However, Finish To Start is not the only task dependence. A case that is seen unexpectedly often is assuming it is Finish to Start when it actually isn’t.

must Finish task A to Start task B
= Task A has to be completed in order to begin Task B.

must Start task A to Start task B
= Task A has to be started in order to begin Task B.

For both cases, when to begin Task B is the important point. However, if you mistake Start to Start with Finish to Start, starting time of Task B will be delayed. The reason is because in a case of Start to Start, there is no need to wait for Task A to be completed. You might find ways of shortening time necessary for the tasks by questioning if it really is Finish to Start. Finish to Start is the most time-consuming out of the four types of task dependence.

Anybody who manages projects knows the definition of critical path. However, a few people are using it effectively. The reason this happens is because many system development projects are waterfall type and divided into phases, so critical paths seem clear on the overview levels. When I ask where the critical paths are, some PMs tell me that “phase 1 → phase 2 → phase 3 → phase 4” is the critical path. It is right when looked at on the overview level for sure. However, you should remember that delays of critical paths occur at more detailed task levels. You want to make sure to specify critical paths from detailed levels like WBS instead of the overview level using the master schedule chart.

When we look at the detailed levels, critical paths are complex and changes could take place due to delays. It is strongly recommended to use project management tools like MS-Project which have automatic calculation functions for critical paths. There are times when you get unexpected calculation results different from what PM had speculated.

• Task of making project management plan
• Task of preparing for progress assessment meetings

Cases like these in which the man-hours and time PMs themselves have to spend are not properly assessed. One of the reason is that PMs can’t say “Our works are also quite hard” because of their pride or bashfulness. I know it’s not easy to generalize because every project and its nature are different, but you want to be assuming 5 to 15 % of the man-hours of the project to be spent for project management as a target.

This is a case in which a PM extracts all tasks from a scratch on his own. There are a number of realistic approaches you can take in order to make schedules besides starting from a scratch.

• Refer to a similar type of project.
• Ask even member to extract detailed tasks and develop from there.
• Ask specialists from each service domain to review.
• Back-calculate with a list of desired accomplishments and extract tasks.
• Ask specialists from each service domain to review.

Especially when you work on a project which either your organization or you personally have been involved in the past, then copy the schedule and use it. The reason is because

• schedules that brought about actual achievements in the past are so much more accurate than not-so-good estimates.
• actual achievements in the past will let you analyze which part of the plan will tend not to work.

Probability distribution of your tasks’ progress is like this,

↓

• Know and accept the fact that tasks may be delayed, but rarely go ahead.
• Do not create the mood in the office to urge people not to be behind schedule rather than thinking about the risks of delaying.
• Statistically analyze plans and achievements to set appropriate schedule buffers.
• Think where to put put schedule buffers carefully.
  – Each task and/or at the end a phase
  – On a critical path and /or after a float task
• Carefully consider the length of schedule buffers.
  – Average of delayed achievements or median or mode
  – Round numbers that are easy to manage; 10 days, 5 days etc.

Advanced people think like this.

90 syndrome is something like this.

For example, there is a case although you received a weekly report indicating task A is 90% done, next or two weeks after that, the remaining 10% doesn’t progress and the task is delayed as a result. Experienced PMs make sure their staff members give reports in the following manner.

• Make sure staff members give you reports on “things that haven’t been done yet”.

Those who give you reports naturally want to be acknowledged for their accomplishments, so they tend to report the things they have done. However, it is important to know “the things that need to be done and how many days are required to finish them” in order to know how much the project is progressing.

• Make sure people give you reports when progress is reversed.

Especially with try-and-error type task, remaining tasks often become apparent after plans are carried out.

If you’re interested in task management, then please check the following article.

Issue management: “What is garbage collector?”

That’s it for today.

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• A managing director in a listed company
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• A rocket scientist

Looking forward to working with excellent leaders.

Please contact:
iphone: 090-6497-4240
irino@linzylinzy.com (Irino)

A strategy consultant

• One-two finish in the largest business plan contest in Japan


• One-two finish in Asian Entrepreneurship Award


• No.1 in google "business plan"


• Judge in the Cloud-Computing Awards


• Write/Review +100 business plans a year


• Meet +300 entrepreneurs a year


• Large-scale project management
  e.g. +15,000 man-months post merger integration


• Expertise: business planning, financing, IT, project management


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• Tokyo University -> University of British Columbia -> Oracle -> Headstrong -> Independent

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Download WBS sample

I would like you to use MS-Project if you can analyze critical paths. However, using Excel is still the standard, so I will provide a three-month WBS of Excel for downloading. Please register and download a WBS sample. It’s a simple sample which was designed for the purpose of web site development projects.

WBSのサンプルのダウンロード

クリティカルパスの分析ができるので、できればMS-Projectを使ってほしいのですが、 Excelを使うのがまだ世の中では一般的なのでExcelの3か月WBSをダウンロード提供します。

ウェブサイト開発プロジェクトを想定したシンプルなサンプルです。