To:   David Pells, Earl Glenwright, Jim O’Brien, Bob Youker, Russ Archibald and readers of PM World Today

I have read the article by Lee Lambert in the in PM World Today Viewpoints May 2008 as well as the subsequent Letter to the Editor by Fred Baker. I have also seen Bob Youker’s observation. The whole thing is once again the story of the three men - wise but blind - feeling the elephant and trying to describe the beast.

In this particular case there is the additional “flaw” (present also in the elephant

example but not mentioned) that we all are products, and thus victims, of the totality of our “experience including how we make our living and in what field. The fundamental, critically significant and easily overlooked flaw is that there exist in fact two WBS’s. There is a PRODUCT breakdown structure - that most commonly assumed and also the subject addressed in the PMI PMBOK.

The second WORK Breakdown, where the word WORK refers totally and exclusively to what could be called the Work-To-Be-Done, is that of the activities/efforts/ intermediate tools and resources used in producing the Products which are elements of THE Project PRODUCT. The distinctions and significant characteristics their content are offered in the attached; a partial extraction of a series of articles published in/on Max Wideman’s website (maxwideman.com) do a site search on Jenett ) during may thru Sept 2003; the original material was prepared in 1995 and not previously published to the public.

A framework for Cost and Time, Product and Effort, and Plan and Progress - the elements needed to proceed to establish the EXECUTION requirements and effort for the PRODUCT (the real and almost sole content of subject of Scope as the PMBOK uses it). This leads to the following useful, and never misleading, guidelines and conclusions:

The WBS as used in the PMBOK Guide is (and must be) entirely and solely directed at elements of the project’s product. Thus it “can” (should/must) itself contain no time or calendar or resource use elements directly. It also then utilizes or consists entirely and exclusively of NOUNS (and maybe adjectives). Its objective is almost entirely directed to clarifying the expected, needed, to be- produced elements of the project’s efforts, the WHAT, without any regard in its content for the WHEN, HOW, WITH WHAT aspects of getting the WORK done on time and budget. It CAN be structured to provide a logical, clear and structured hierarchy and content for a COST (only) summary (only).

It is useful and needed, even critical, in the efforts to produce a list of probable activities to be started and finished/done/executed/completed in order to be able to say the project is ready for closeout and .complete. That list of ACTIVITIES is what really serves as the basis for the scheduling effort both with respect to sequencing (the planning effort) and the estimating of activity work/resource content and duration leading to the “subsequent” pinning-in-time of those activities (the scheduling effort). Be it noted that it is often necessary to break some elements of the initial activity list down because of estimating and sequencing needs generated in the planning and scheduling efforts based on the activity lists.

IF the WBS in fact, itself, contains time, activity or schedule material AND is used as a “content” to be reported against, my own experience (and that of many with “real” experience in “real” projects that I have talked with) will inevitably mean that the project elements involved with scheduling, progress reporting and forecasting for time, resources and cost will be forced to spend significant effort and go through contorted manipulation every reporting period. All this just so time

can be summarized to the WBS level with results that don’t raise flags because “they don’t make sense with the cost reports we’re seeing”.

To summarize (and some will say, “why didn’t you just say that and stop??”): WBS relates only and solely to “products” or “results” which can be fully described with nouns and adjectives (only) - with no time or work content elements. WBS enables knowledgeable others to produce ACTIVITY LISTS for each element contained in the WBS. These ACTIVITY LISTS enable knowledgeable others to plan a logical sequence for that list, estimate work content in terms of duration and resources (in its broadest sense) for each activity on that list, and finally pin each activity on the list to a time frame in the expected project chronology; the scheduling effort.

Incorporating time or resource requirement elements in the WBS concept and content is a sure way to insure there will be contortions, discrepancies, misleading reporting and a continuing series of “eruptions” in the course of pursuing the project to its end.

Reference: Attached extract of 1996 article from Max Wideman’s website

Respectfully,

Eric Jenett
PMI Fellow/Founder
Houston, Texas, USA