Planning and the Work Breakdown Structure

When you create project plans, you create a planning work breakdown structure for each separate project plan. You do not need to use the enterprise-wide work breakdown structure.

You can use any number of work breakdown structure levels when you plan a project in Deltek Planning. However, if you plan to convert your project plan into a project for use in the CRM, Accounting, or Time & Expense applications, or if you plan to view plan budgets in Deltek project reports, you need to map the plan structure to the project structure.

If you use the Deltek Planning application, a well-planned work breakdown structure can help the project manager:

• Plan and schedule the work and resources required to complete quality projects on time and within budget.
• Organize project work into segments (phases or phases and tasks) that result in deliverables.
• Assign and track accountability for project work.
• Track and measure resource assignments to avoid resource shortages.

If you also use the Accounting application, a well-planned work breakdown structure can help the project manager:

• Track and budget a project's costs, using the Project Budget Worksheet or the Project Progress report.
• Track the percentage of the project completed.
• Track employee performance for future reference.
• Forecast revenues and profits that will be generated by the project.
• Track and measure project expenses for stakeholder reporting.
• Report project progress to internal and external stakeholders.

If you also use the CRM application, a well-planned work breakdown structure lets the project manager leverage data collected by sales or marketing professionals while pursuing a project.

Planning Requirements

Project planners have the following requirements of a work breakdown structure:

• The ability to plan the project from beginning to end, leveraging existing client or project data, and leveraging information about available resources.
• Robust storage of detailed information about the project for the purposes of reporting progress internally and to interested external parties, such as clients or vendors.
• The ability to improve future performance based on data collected from past work on similar projects.
• Easy and flexible data manipulation and analysis.
• Accurate and timely data storage, retrieval, and manipulation to keep projects on schedule and on time.
• The ability to compare actual costs with plans

Your project planners do not want the following:

• A structure that is too simple to capture the detail needed.
• A structure that is so complex that it requires an unnecessarily high learning curve or time-consuming data entry.
• To be slowed down by the details of billing, expensing, or costing a project.
• To be slowed down by tracking labor for payroll purposes.