A WBS is an overview that divides the overall project into individual sections - sub and work packages.
This allows you to see at a glance,
If a project consists of more than just a single task, it quickly becomes important to keep an overview.
A PSP provides you with this overview.
The PSP is the central tool for
It is therefore the basis of the entire project management, because in a well-positioned PSP you immediately see all the information you need to manage a project. You can update, share and complete this information.
The work breakdown structure is therefore often called the "mother of all plans".
The PSP helps you both in the starting phase and in the implementation phase of a project.
During the starting phase PSP gives you a good structure according to which you can divide the work packages and responsibilities.
During the implementation phase, PSP is particularly important for controlling. It allows you to compare the progress of the project with the expenses incurred and the planned schedule.
As a basis for the entire project planning, the PSP provides you with a number of significant advantages.
These include above all:
When you create a work breakdown structure, you arrange all upcoming tasks into project management work packages.
This gives the overall project a logical, self-contained and structured structure.
This makes it easier for you to get an overview of the individual project sections and task areas.
Once the individual work packages have been defined, you can nominate the appropriate persons to supervise the sections and take responsibility for them. This means that you immediately have a defined contact person for all related tasks.
If you have distributed the responsibility for the individual sections well, you will have more time to take care of the management of the overall project.
With a clear responsibility, you will always have a number of people who will keep you informed of progress in their areas. This allows you to check the status of your tasks and also to ensure that - if necessary - the individual tasks are distributed differently.
This can be a good idea, for example, if you see that progress in one work package is behind schedule, while another team has finished its tasks more quickly.
As a project manager you are always at the helm with a project structure plan. If you see that requirements have changed, you can react immediately and, if necessary, reallocate work packages, call in external staff or allocate additional resources.
This keeps you flexible and allows you to react quickly and reliably to changes in requirements.
The work breakdown structure provides a budget for each task. Depending on the size of your project, you can either monitor compliance with the budget yourself or have those responsible inform you about it.
This gives you a good overview of your expenses and allows you to control them as required.
Each task is assigned the time allocated to it in the PSP. A PSP also allows you to define dependencies that allow you to see exactly where the critical tasks are that could delay the completion of other work packages. If you notice that the teams with the critical tasks are behind schedule, you can quickly allocate additional resources to support them.
In this way, you can ensure that the overall project can meet the set timeframe.
The quality of the entire project can only meet the requirements of the stakeholders if the quality of the individual project sections is right. Each task is therefore assigned certain specifications in the PSP. These have to be met in order for the stage to be considered completed.
As a project manager, the work breakdown structure makes it easy for you to check the results of the work and, if necessary, to have the work quickly improved.
I
n PSP you can define communication points and use them to organize team brainstorming. This promotes team cooperation. If the team members feel involved in the project organization, they are much more motivated
and more committed in the implementation of their tasks.
