Work Breakdown Structure Overview

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 WBS is integral to successful project proposals, planning, scheduling, budgeting, and reporting.

Your Vision work breakdown structure impacts the following:

• The value that you receive from the data 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 that you can provide to your clients

Two Key Components

There are two key components to the Vision WBS, which work together to provide a comprehensive tracking and reporting system. Before you begin to set up your firm's work breakdown structure, your firm must understand how the components work together to provide a structure that gathers and reports information to meet your firm's internal and external reporting needs.

The two components are:

• The team structure
• The WBS or contract structure

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

Implementation Decisions

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

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

  When you install Vision, the default WBS has only one level: Project. Use the Key Formats utilities (Utilities > Key Formats) for phases, or phases and tasks, 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 to force the uniformity of project number length

Considerations in Planning the WBS

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

• Contract stipulations — You must consider your firm's contractual obligations for reporting when planning your WBS.
• Organization structure of your company — You must consider your company structure and the way different departments or offices work together.
• Applications that you use — Your information needs may change depending on the Vision applications that you use.
• Needs of various roles within your company — Different groups within your company, such as marketing and project management, have different needs for project information. You must consider the information that each group needs when planning your WBS.

Who Plans the Work Breakdown Structure?

The Vision work breakdown structure (WBS) is an important tool for many people throughout your firm, from the marketing professional trying to win a new job, to the project manager planning a project. Because of this, it may be helpful to involve the various groups that will use the Vision work breakdown structure when deciding how to structure your company-wide WBS and determining guidelines for tailoring the WBS on a project-by-project basis.

Terminology

The Vision default term for work done by your firm is "project." You can use another term, such as case or job, to refer to a project. Use the Labels tab in Configuration > General > System Settings or the Info Center Designer to tailor this and other standard labels throughout Vision to meet your firm's needs.

Reporting and WBS Levels

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