From the course: Project Management Foundations

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What is a work breakdown structure?

What is a work breakdown structure?

From the course: Project Management Foundations

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What is a work breakdown structure?

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- [Instructor] After you get the go ahead to plan your project, the first thing you do is identify the work that has to be done. Even small projects can have lots of tasks. That's why project managers use a diagram called a work breakdown structure, or WBS, to organize work. You use it to divvy up project work into manageable pieces so you can plan, track, and manage your project. Creating a WBS helps manage the project in several ways. First, it's easier to estimate time and cost for smaller chunks of work. Say the sponsor wants to know how long the whole project will take. You can't come up with a good answer off the top of your head. It's a lot easier to think about how long smaller parts of the project will take. After you estimate the small chunks, you can add them up to get an estimate for the entire project. It's also easier to assign work to team members. By breaking work into smaller pieces, you'll have built-in checkpoints to measure progress on the project. A WBS contains…

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