Work Breakdown Structure

A work breakdown structure (WBS) divides each of your projects into distinct, manageable work elements in a way that balances management needs with the need to collect an appropriate and effective level of project data.

A well-planned work breakdown structure is integral to successful project proposals, planning, scheduling, budgeting, and reporting.

Your DPS work breakdown structure impacts the following:

• The value that you receive from the data that you store
• The ability to leverage past work to generate new business
• The ability to improve job performance based on past experience
• The ease and quality of knowledge sharing among groups in your company
• The quality of service and level of reporting and billing customization that you can provide to your clients

Four Key Components

Four key components make up the DPS work breakdown structure. Together they provide a comprehensive tracking and reporting system for cost and revenue information. Before you set up your work breakdown structure, you should understand how each of the four components work together to provide a structure that gathers and reports information to meet your internal and external reporting needs.

The four components are:

• The organizational (or profit center) structure.
• The project structure.
• The labor code structure for labor cost.
• The chart of accounts structure for expenses.

DPS project plans can also have a work breakdown structure. Since plans can be converted to projects, it is important to understand how the planning work breakdown structure and the project work breakdown structure relate to each other.

In addition to the key components of the work breakdown structure, DPS includes other codes, such as client numbers, whose structure you must plan before you start to use DPS. Because DPS is an integrated system, you should consider your work breakdown structure when developing other numbering structures.

Implementation Decisions

At the enterprise-wide level, specify the following during installation and setup:

• Maximum number of work breakdown structure levels that can be used for any project (up to three)

  When you install DPS, the default work breakdown structure has only one level: project. If you want to add a second or third level, activate phases, or phases and tasks. Use the Key Formats utilities (Utilities > Key Formats) to activate one or both of those levels by specifying the lengths of the phase and task numbers.

• Labels to use for each level
• Format of the values for each level, including maximum lengths and number of delimiters
• The use of leading zeros so that project numbers have a uniform length

Considerations in Planning the Work Breakdown Structure

Keep these considerations in mind when planning your work breakdown structure:

• Contract stipulations: You must consider your enterprise's contractual obligations for billing and reporting when planning your work breakdown structure. For example, if your contracts require that you create separate invoices for expense and labor, or that you bill labor and expense at separate times (for example, monthly for labor, weekly for expense), then you must use project delimiters in your work breakdown structure to track a project's expense and labor separately.
• Organization structure of your company : You must consider your company structure and the way in which different departments or offices work together. For example, if your enterprise has multiple business units that must track costs and expenses individually, and that will collaborate on the same project, you could configure organization codes to represent each office, and then associate the appropriate work breakdown structure levels with the appropriate office for costing and revenue purposes.
• Applications that you use : Your information needs may change depending on the DPS applications that you use.
• Needs of various roles within your company : Different groups within your company, such as marketing, project management, project planning, and accounting and finance, have different needs for project information. You must consider the information each group needs when planning your work breakdown structure.
• Internal and external reporting needs: Internal reporting needs include project reporting and budgeting data; marketing and other indirect cost data; information on employee utilization; and general ledger reporting data, enterprise-wide and by organization. External reporting needs include billing and progress reports for clients.

Who Plans the Work Breakdown Structure?

The DPS work breakdown structure is an important tool for many people throughout your enterprise, from the marketing professional trying to win a new job, to the project manager planning a project, to the accounting professional making sure that the client is properly billed for the work done.

Because the needs of the accounting professional are often precise and dependent on the data collected and managed by the project manager, it is important that an accounting representative and a project management representative are involved when planning your enterprise-wide work breakdown structure. You may also want someone to provide a marketing perspective.

Terminology

The DPS default term for work done by your enterprise is "project." You can use another term, such as case or job, instead. To tailor this and other standard labels to meet your needs, use the Labels tab in Settings > General > General System or use the Design actions in hubs.

Transaction Recording and Work Breakdown Structure Levels

All transactions are recorded at the lowest level available for an individual work breakdown structure. For example, transactions are recorded at the task level for a project with three-levels of work breakdown structure (project, phase, and task).

Reporting and WBS Levels

You can run reports at any level of the work breakdown structure. For example, you can run a report at the phase level for a project with three levels of work breakdown structure.