The work breakdown structure in software project management

The work breakdown structure (WBS) is a vehicle for breaking an engineering project down into subproject, tasks, subtasks, work packages, and so on. It is an important planning tool which links objectives with resources and activities in a logical framework. It becomes an important status monitor during the actual implementation as the completions of subtasks are measured against the project plan. Whereas the WBS has been widely used in many other engineering applications, it has seemingly only rarely been formally applied to software projects, for various reasons. Recent successes with software project WBSs, however, have clearly indicated that the technique can be applied and have shown the benefits of such a tool in management of these projects. This paper advocates and summarizes the use of the WBS in software implementation projects. It also identifies some of the problems people have had generating software WBSs, and the need for standard checklists of items to be included.