Product-based Project Planning
Product Breakdown Structure (PBS) & Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
Breakdown structures are deliverable-oriented decompositions of a product or set of activities into smaller, logically structured components.
Breakdown structures can be organized by:
- product
- activity
- or a combination of both
Product Breakdown Structure (PBS)
The Product Breakdown Structure (PBS) is a hierarchical structure of products that a project will create or the outcomes it will deliver.
In product-based project management methods such as PRINCE2, planning starts with the PBS.
Other methodologies sometimes refer to product-based Work Breakdown Structures (WBS) when they are effectively describing a PBS.
Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
The Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) provides a hierarchical structure of project activities that organizes the team’s work into manageable sections.
The output of these activities are the products structured in the PBS.
➡️ WBS training
PBS in the project schedule
Project schedules should be structured based on the Product Breakdown Structure.
This approach provides a clear overview and makes it easy to track progress and remaining work per product.
In the example below, the PBS is integrated directly into the Gantt chart, meaning:
- the PBS becomes part of the project schedule
- no separate PBS maintenance is required
For most projects, this approach is the most efficient.
Example: PBS translated into a project schedule
We took a random PBS from the internet and translated it into a product-based project schedule.
(Click to enlarge)
