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In this final part of the series on creating your Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) we present a checklist of good practices and things you should look out for when preparing your next WBS. If you can answer ‘yes’ to most of these questions, then you’re well on the way to becoming a skilled creator of Work Breakdown Structures.

Here we go:

1. Did you create the WBS with the assistance of your project team?
2. Has the entire scope of the project been included?
3. Are there complete deliverables in the WBS?
4. Is each deliverable unique?
5. Does the WBS have the right level of detail?
6. Are milestones included?
7. Have you included project management activities?
8. Have you included risk mitigation tasks?
9. Have you identified an owner for every task?
10. Have you used a simple verb-noun format to describe the tasks?

Continuing with the post on creating a WBS:

1. Assemble the project team and all contributors including people from functional departments and supporting organisations, and any other stakeholders who can assist with understanding the project
2. Get all the relevant documents from the project initiation phase, including the Project Charter and the overall project objective
3. Use an existing template if available
4. Identify all the deliverables and the work that must be done to produce them, and decompose the work through multiple levels into subsets of the major deliverables
5. Continue with the breakdown until the lowest-level work-packages are:

• Small. Typically, the lowest-level package of work should be between about 1% and 10% of the overall project estimated duration
• Measurable, with clear completion criteria
• Assignable to a single owner

Decide how you want to monitor and control the project work, and use this as a way of designing the major headings in the WBS, choosing from the options below:

1. By project Life-Cycle Phase (design, build, test etc.)
2. Using Major Deliverables as the first level (hardware, software, support equipment, training etc.)

Although not strictly a WBS, it is also possible to break down the work by following your Organizational Breakdown Structure, or  “OBS”:

1. By Functional Department (Engineering, Production, Marketing, Finance etc.)
2. By Geographical Location (Singapore, Bangalore etc.)
3. By Skill-Set or Discipline (Programming, marketing, painting etc.)

Here’s an example of a WBS created by Life-Cycle Phase:

And here’s the same work represented by a WBS by Major Deliverables:

When planning a project, we need to know exactly what is – and is not – included within that project. Very simple projects can often be defined and planned using a simple checklist, for example:

• Choose holiday destination
• Book flight
• Pack suitcase
• Go on holiday

Larger projects will benefit from rearranging the checklist in a structured way, so that we can easily see the entire scope of the project without getting confused by all those points in a randomly ordered checklist.

The process of defining what we will be doing on our project is known as Scope Definition, and we perform this using a Work Breakdown Structure, or WBS.

The WBS  details all the items of work  and all the outputs (or ‘deliverables’)we will be producing. The WBS is structured such that high-level items are broken-down, or ‘decomposed’ into lower level items in multiple levels. This work is usually identified by brainstorming with your team, and using lists from previous projects.

The WBS can receive information from:

• Project Scope Statement
• Requirements Documentation

The WBS provides information to:

• Activity List and Activity Cost Estimates
• Network Diagram
• Project Budget
• Quality Management Plan
• Risk Register
• Procurement Management Plan
• Project Management Plan

Benefits of using a WBS are as follows:

• Divides the project scope into logical, manageable, definable packages of work that enable management at an appropriate and effective level.
• An aid in communication with stakeholders, assisting them in developing a clear vision of the end product of the project and of the overall process by which it will be created.
• Assists in clearly identifying responsibility and accountability to the level of detail required for managing and controlling the project.
• Identifies the impact of changes to the project work.
• Helps the project team to understand their work and the impact on the whole project.
• Helps with team-building, as the project team members give their input for the design of the WBS.
• Used as a basis for estimating resources, time, and cost.
• Used for identifying risk by work package, for risk mitigation.

The Work Breakdown Structure, or WBS, is an extremely important document, and allows for people and other resources to be assigned, budgeted and scheduled.

In the The next posting we will examine several different ways that a WBS can be structured.

EPM Training Services organizes and runs project management training courses for our clients. We are therefore very interested in the results of those training programs. Are they beneficial to the participants and their employers? How do we measure the results of training in an organization?

Assessing the effectiveness of training is often performed using the four-level model developed by Donald Kirkpatrick, whose ideas were first published in 1959. The four levels of Kirkpatrick’s evaluation model essentially measure:

• Reaction of student (their thoughts, feelings and perceptions about the training). Did they like it? Was the material relevant to their work? This type of evaluation is often called a “happy-sheet” which students complete at the end of any training session.

• Learning (the increase in knowledge or capability as a result of the training). Evaluation at this level attempts to assess how far students have advanced in skills, knowledge, or attitude. Measurement methods include formal to informal testing, team assessment, and self-assessment.This might involve participants taking an assessment before the training (pretest) and after training (post test) to determine the amount of learning that has been transferred.

• Behavior (the extent of behavior and capability improvement and application). Are the newly acquired skills, knowledge, or attitude being used in the everyday environment of the learner?

• Results (effects on the business or environment resulting from the trainee’s performance). This level measures the success of the training program in business terms including increased productivity, better quality, decreased costs, reduced frequency of accidents, and increased sales.

Notice anything missing here? What about Return On Investment (ROI)?

The financial benefits of training can’t be measured in terms of student reactions, nor the amount of  learning that has been achieved, or even the extent to which behavior may have changed. The real benefits come from improved performance – traditionally the hardest training outcome to measure.

Jack J. Phillips proposed that we use ROI as the fifth-level of evaluation. Did the monetary value of the results exceed the cost for the program? This is probably going to be the most difficult thing for the poor overworked Human Resources Department to measure, as it’s only the very senior management who are able to get access to this information. Therefore, senior level support is essential. The cost of measurement is also going to be high. Recognizing this, Phillips proposes a 5% evaluation target for this level of assessment (compared to a 100% target for Level-1). A company would only want to undertake this increased level of assessment for the highest cost, or highest visibility, project management training programs.

Here’s the book:  How To Measure Training Results

ROI is defined like this:

(Net Program Benefits) / (Program Costs) X 100 = ROI

Total benefits include money saved by the organization, and money made.

Total costs include the obvious and the not-so-obvious: Development costs, learner’s time away from work, overhead of HR department, materials, meals, refreshments, facilities, cost of coordination, cost of job coverage during training, and any other cost incurred.

Measuring the outcome of your project management training is an essential part of any training program, and will show you the value of training  and justify the investment.

There seem to be many definitions of “Emotional Intelligence” (EQ), so let’s look at the skills specific to project managers, and how they might be improved in project management training.

Here’s the definition of the seven EQ leadership competencies as proposed by Dulewicz and Higgs (2003):

• Self-awareness
• Emotional resilience
• Motivation
• Sensitivity
• Influence
• Intuitiveness
• Conscientiousness

All very desirable traits, but very difficult to improve through a standard training course or presentation involving lectures. Let’s have a detailed look at each of the points above.

Self-awareness

The ability to read one’s own emotions and recognize their impact. This implies an accurate self–assessment, and self confidence.

Emotional resilience

Your ability to adapt to stressful situations or crises. Resilient people can adapt to adversity without lasting difficulty.

Sensitivity

Awareness of the needs and emotions of others.

Influence

Your ability or power to persuade or produce effects on the actions, behavior, opinions, of others.

Intuitiveness

Having or possessing intuition; which is the direct perception of truth or fact independent of any reasoning process; or a keen insight.

Conscientiousness

This means you are  controlled by your conscience; which is the inner sense of what is right or wrong in conduct or motives, leading you to take the right action or to follow the dictates of conscience. The ethical and moral principles that control or inhibit your actions or thoughts.

Training or Experience?

It is our opinion that many of the above traits will be acquired by direct experience. For example, if you have gone through a particularly emotional event such as divorce or bereavement then you will have direct experience of resilience. You will be able to emerge from the event stronger and more resilient if you learn from the experience rather than succumbing to stress. Counseling and coaching can also be helpful here.

In terms of project management training; any soft-skills course can help to develop an increased awareness of your own abilities, particularly if the training involves an assessment instrument and some 360 degree feedback from other people (this is feedback that comes from all around a person, referring to the 360 degrees in a circle, with an individual imagined to be in the centre of the circle. Feedback is provided by subordinates, peers, and supervisors).

Again, it’s important to learn from this kind of experience and not get upset about other peoples comments. Seek out a training course with a suitable assessment instrument and use the training experience to become more self-aware.

In the previous posting about Project Management Training we mentioned that MQ – “managerial competence”, or knowledge and skills of management functions - is a necessary skill for project managers. So just what, exactly, is involved in “MQ”?

Consider this definition of the MQ leadership competence as proposed by Dulewicz and Higgs (2003):

• Engaging communication
• Managing resources
• Empowering
• Developing
• Achieving

Engaging communication starts with a Communication Plan for your project, and includes the ability to make engaging presentations to project stakeholders in various formats. You will often be called upon to make presentations to various project stakeholders, including formal and informal meetings and small to large scale gatherings

Managing resources includes the ability to use appropriate tools to manage the people and physical resources involved in the project

Empowering means creating the conditions for your team to grow, and allowing others to make their own decisions

Developing includes providing training and opportunities for your team, and for yourself

Achieving involves reaching project and personal goals in order to create a feeling of self-actualization

There are a great many project management training courses that address each area above. You should aim to develop your competency in all the areas to be most effective, and to empower yourself with the skills necessary to manage your project team.

In order to excel in our jobs as Project Managers, we need to use project management training to gain competency and improve our skills in three different areas:

1. People
2. Processes
3. Tools

Let’s examine each area in more detail:

1. People

This generally refers to our ability to relate with, manage, and lead the people involved in our projects. The skills required can be considered to fall into three different areas of competency:

• IQ (your basic level of intelligence and ability to solve problems)
• MQ (your ability to manage and communicate with other people)
• EQ (your level of emotional awareness, self-knowledge, and ability to relate to others).

2. Processes

There are many processes available to Project Managers. For example, there are processes for creating a Project Charter, for producing the Project Work Breakdown Structure, Network Diagram, defining a budget etc etc. Here at ePM Training Services we follow the processes defined in the Project Management Institute (PMI) “Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge” (PMBOK), as this contains a very thorough description of all the processes involved in running a project. These processes cover all project phases: Initiation, Planning, Executing, Monitoring & Controlling, and Closing.

3. Tools

Again, there are very many tools for us to use that will help to get the project work done more efficiently, for example telephones, email and video conferencing communications tools.  There are software packages for designing work breakdown structures and scheduling projects, and even the humble word processor and spreadsheet can all help us in our jobs.

Training

I wonder how many project managers have actually been formally trained in the best-practices of all three areas? Our suggestion is that you seek out the project management training that will help you to improve in all three areas above. This is the biggest thing you can do to empower yourself, especially when jobs are difficult to find. If you are already an expert in management and software tools, then you should consider a soft-skills course in how to negotiate, how to influence, or become more self-aware.

After all, if you don’t know your own motivations, strengths and weaknesses, then how can you manage others effectively?