WBS – structure-based project planning

The WBS is a tool that allows you to break down a job into smaller parts, giving you complete control over it throughout its execution. WBS Navigo is the only tool of its kind that allows you to continuously control the finances of each part of the project and has a CBS function.

After dividing the job into smaller parts (stages, project documentation stages, etc.), you can plan which work will be done internally by your team, what you will subcontract and how much you plan to invoice. You can also assign implementation dates , responsible persons and estimated costs to each of these parts.

You can plan and work on each part of the project separately and in varying degrees of detail, and add or remove parts of the plan. To make your work easier, you can create templates for recurring projects.

Contents

Benefits of Navigo3’s WBS
Differences between WBS tools
Who is WBS for?

The WBS project management method consists of dividing more complex projects or contracts into tree structures. The project manager thus gains an overview of the individual stages and tasks that must be completed for the successful implementation of a contract or project. Especially for medium and large projects, WBS greatly facilitates the organization of work in a company or enterprise.

Benefits of Navigo3’s WBS

• The WBS is the only WBS that provides a detailed overview of the project’s financial status (CBS).
• It provides a comprehensive overview of the project and all its components.
• It allows you to assign responsibilities, deadlines and finances to individual activities in the project.
• It solves the problem of excessive subcontracting and allocations in project planning.
• It allows you to create and use templates for recurring or similar projects.
• It helps to correct the project status in time and minimizes the risk of financial loss.
• It streamlines the organization of work on the project.

Differences between WBS tools

The WBS method is a general project management method. However, each system offered by the WBS tool is programmed differently. It follows that the WBSs of the different project management software providers differ fundamentally in the capabilities and quality of the information you can get from them. It can be said that the more sophisticated the functionality used by the WBS, the more the project manager has the opportunity to “dive” into the project, and the earlier he identifies the problem or risks in the implementation of the project.

In its simplest form, the WBS can be thought of as a mind map into which you can lay out your entire project. This mind map will give you a visualization of projects, tasks and subtasks. You can use this option if you are working on a simple project where you only want to create a structured list of work, without any cost control requirements or major changes to the project plan.

For more complex WBS software, you can also edit tasks and projects by simply dragging and dropping, in addition to creating a mind map.

WBS and project cost tracking

At Navigo3, we believe that for a WBS to be a truly effective project management tool, it needs to help the user keep track of the cost of individual works and project objectives.

Therefore, Navigo3’s WBS is the only one that offers an unrivalled ability to continuously evaluate the costs of individual project phases.

At each node in the workflow, there is a thermometer that visualizes the cost and status of a particular project. At a glance, you can see if there is a financial loss or overrun of the work or subcontract budget. You can thus immediately assess the status of a specific project phase with respect to its budget.

Financially, the project can be planned either from the top down or the other way around. These options are used depending on whether the final price of the project is set or whether the final contract price is still subject to change. Navigo3’s WBS allows plans to be revised at any time and can also be used as a basis for calculations.

Creating a WBS in Navigo3

Creating a WBS in Navigo3 is very intuitive, simple and does not require a background in project management. You just need to have an idea of the project plan and its structure, this is simply established in the project plan and the individual works are broken down into the required structure.

For the most efficient use of the WBS, we recommend setting the continuity for each branch (element) – i.e. fill in when the activity should start and how long it should last, or you can refine these continuities in advanced settings. This will allow you to see the temporal continuity of each part of the plan and take full advantage of the time references. These make it easy for you to safely make changes to your project plan without missing important deadlines. In case you choose not to specify the start and duration for the sub-sections of the plan, the follow-up tracking by time references will be automatically set to the start and end of the project. Therefore, if the end of the project is postponed, the time for the implementation of each project branch is automatically postponed. Even in this simplified version, time references will serve you well.

Project templates

Since many companies work with projects that have a similar structure, they can benefit from the ability to import or export the entire plan from or to an Excel format. This way, you can prepare templates for all similar projects and it is not necessary to create the project work structure again. A typical example are design offices that plan their projects according to the stages of the project documentation.

Who is WBS for?

WBS is a project management tool that can be used to manage any project or contract. For small projects the WBS is simple, for very large projects multi-level structures can be created.

WBS is used by both small companies and large companies running many projects simultaneously. Typical industries applying this method of project management include architectural and design firms, construction companies, advertising and marketing agencies, legal firms and software companies.