Project Management (Part 3) - Developing Your Game Plan Using a WBS

In Project Management (Part 3) - Developing Your Game Plan Using a WBS, you'll learn ...

• Steps required to subdivide your project using a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
• How to determine the level of detail to put into your WBS
• What to do when you want to break down a particular WBS component further, but certain unknowns stop you from doing so
• How to deal with WBS components that have no obvious break points
• Methods for improving the quality of your WBS

Overview

Preview a portion of this course before purchasing it.

Credit: 2 PDH

Length: 25 pages

Over the past 25 to 30 years the number of projects in the workplace has skyrocketed. Projects of all types and sizes are now the way that organizations accomplish their work. People who want to devote their careers to planning and managing those projects are vital to their successes.

At the same time, a new breed of project manager has emerged. This new breed may not have set career goals to become project managers, but they do know they must successfully manage projects to move ahead in their careers. Clearly, project management has become a critical skill, not a career choice.

Even though these people realize they need special tools, techniques, and knowledge to handle their new types of assignments, they may not be able or willing to devote large amounts of time to acquiring them, which is where this Project Management course series comes into play.

This course is Part 3 of a 9-part series based on the popular book Project Management for Dummies, 4th Edition, which provides tools and techniques in accordance with PMI’s A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK). Each course in the series is stand-alone. Feel free to jump back and forth through the courses depending on your own project-management knowledge and experience and your current needs. However, it is suggested that you complete the series in sequential order if you are new to project management concepts.

This course, Part 3 of the series, will show you how to break down your project work into manageable pieces. You’ll learn what a WBS is and how to develop one. You’ll learn how to determine the amount of detail you should put into your WBS.

You’ll learn the three types of components that make up a project’s deliverable/activity hierarchy. You’ll learn why it’s important to have frequent milestones to support project tracking. You’ll learn how to deal with WBS components that have no obvious break points. Finally, you’ll learn the importance of keeping project information in a WBS dictionary.

This course is applicable to engineers of all disciplines working in any industry. Whether you are an experienced project manager or you’ve never been on a project team… Whether you’ve had significant project-management training or you’ve had none… this course series will provide the knowledge and tools you’ll need to plan and manage projects.

The courses in this series were written to be direct and (relatively) easy to understand. But don’t be misled — the simple text still navigates all the critical tools and techniques you’ll need to support your project planning, scheduling, budgeting, organizing, and controlling.

For those seeking Project Management Professional (PMP) certification, the tools and techniques provided in this course series are in accordance with PMBOK. In fact, a section is provided at the end of each course module that specifies where the topics in the module are addressed in PMBOK.

It’s important to note that PMBOK identifies what best practices are but doesn’t address in detail how to perform them or deal with difficulties you may encounter as you try to perform them. In contrast, this course series focuses heavily on how to perform the project-management techniques and processes. However, if you’re preparing to take the PMP examination, use these courses as a companion to PMBOK, not as a substitute for it.

Specific Knowledge or Skill Obtained

This course teaches the following specific knowledge and skills:

• Why you need to describe in detail all the work required to complete your project
• What it means to decompose your project work
• Steps required to subdivide your project using a Work Breakdown Structure
• Conditions under which you need to break down a deliverable into the components necessary to produce it
• What to do when you want to break down a particular WBS component further, but certain unknowns stop you from doing so
• The three types of components that make up a project’s deliverable/activity hierarchy
• How to indirectly represent conditionally repeating work in your WBS
• Why it’s important to have frequent milestones to support project tracking
• How to deal with WBS components that have no obvious break points
• Applying a rolling-wave approach when developing a WBS for a long-term project
• When to use the top-down vs. brainstorming approach to WBS development
• Three of the most common formats for displaying your WBS, along with the relative merits of each
• Methods for improving the quality of your WBS
• Identifying risks while detailing your work
• The importance of keeping project information in a WBS dictionary

Certificate of Completion

You will be able to immediately print a certificate of completion after passing a multiple-choice quiz consisting of 12 questions. PDH credits are not awarded until the course is completed and quiz is passed.