About Work Breakdown Structures (WBS)

A WBS, or work breakdown structure, is a hierarchical arrangement of work activities that divides a project into discrete levels, phases, or layers. The WBS is structured in levels of work detail, beginning with the deliverable and separated into identifiable work elements.

When creating a project, the project manager typically develops the WBS first. The manager assigns documents to each WBS element, and then defines activities to complete that element. In addition to document and activity assignments, each WBS element can also have specific earned value calculation settings, issue assignments, and notebook topics.

Each project has its own WBS hierarchy with the top-level WBS element equal to that of each enterprise project structure (EPS) node or project. Each WBS element can contain more detailed WBS levels, activities, or both.

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