Planning and the WBS

When you create project plans, you create a planning WBS for each particular project plan. You do not need to use the firmwide WBS structure.

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

If your firm uses the Planning application, a well-planned WBS can help the project manager do the following:

• 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 your firm also uses the Accounting application, a well-planned WBS can help the project manager do the following:

• 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 your firm also uses the CRM and Proposals application, a well-planned WBS allows the project manager to leverage data saved by sales or marketing professionals while pursuing a project.

Planning Requirements

Project planners have the following requirements of a WBS:

• 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 in Planning.

Your project planners do not want the following:

• A structure that is too simple to capture the detail he or she needs.
• 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.