The WBS Dictionary

In this podcast, Ricardo talks about the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) Dictionary. He explains that this document may be called the work packages instruction manual and gives tips on how to plan well your dictionary.

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Episode transcript

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Hello, how everyone welcome to the five minutes BM Podcast Today. I like to talk to you about the WBS Dictionary it's very important. When we are defining the scope of the project with basically used the WBS, the work breakdown structure, where we decompose the main pieces of work in the project into a clear deliverables and clear work packages. And this will create to us The WBS Dictionary and The WBS, Dictionary the easiest way to share with you.

What does the WBS Dictionary its like an instruction manual. So every single piece of work that you are a decomposing, the project, you need to define the scope of that piece. I'm not talking about the project, the scope, but the scope of that small piece of work that we call Work package and then the deliverables who is responsible, the scaffold, its like the instruction guide of how people will as a acute, that piece of work. So let's suppose you are building a big home. Okay.

And then you created the WBS and we split that the work in the home in different things. You have one small piece of work that its to install the door off the bedroom. Okay. And then this will be your work, the package and what will be in the WBS, the trainer, it's all the instructions you need to install this door also. What is The what are the deliverable for that work package? Which kind of, and how I can see that the is ready.

So maybe the door fully functioning, opening and closing that the LOC is working second. What do I need to get ready before I do that? So the predecessors, what will be the successor of this who will be responsible for this Work package and who will be in charge in a comfortable for this work package and the basic scandal? How long does it take to install the store? So we'll be doing this for every single package in the WBS. So if your project has a thousand work packages, you need to do this a thousand times.

Of course I'm not talking about a document. That's extremely the tail. If you have a document that it is becoming very complex to describe the work, the package may be its time to think about split in those Work package does instruction on the WBS Dictionary must be straight, must be direct, an easy to understand for those will be as acute. And so it's very important that we understand. So if you are prepared, that will be as Dictionary and it's taken long. And we were spending 10, 20 pages, probably something is wrong.

Probably this is not a work package does is extremely big chunk of work that you may be will benefit from split in it. So this is the understand behind this and a lot of people WBS, but very few people are concerned at the, about the Dictionary. And then when they come to execution, people do not know clearly what is expected from them because the Work package is only a name on a box and there is no instruction for that.

So we need to think about this and prepare very good at WBS the challenge to make sure that our work is clear and sharp for the execution. So I hope you enjoy this podcast. See you next week with another five minutes BM Podcast.

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