Maria PRT

Work Breakdown Structure

Maria Duplantier, Rinelle Pierce, Dorothea Terry

31 July 2017

PM/582

Professor Mark Block

Executive Summary

A work breakdown structure (WBS) has been prepared for your review. The WBS utilizes the decomposition technique to identify the tasks that must be completed for OLLO to accomplish an increase in sales by 30% over the next 2 years and a growth in internal staff by 15% over the next year to support this effort. The document includes a description of the role of a project leader in creating a WBS; as well as strategies a project leader would use to interpret the project scope statement, conduct relevant research, and develop the WBS. Finally, you will find a description of how the PM will present this information to stakeholders in a way that will generate support for the project.

Project Leader Role in Creating A WBS

Project managers have several roles, including selecting and managing team members. The WBS is an essential project deliverable that arranges a team's tasks into attainable components. WBS is a deliverable aligned hierarchical breakdown of tasks to be completed by the team (Wrike, 2017). The project manager plays a huge role in establishing the WBS. The project manager is charged with distinguishing time-limited activities and allotting fixed time frames and costs, which ensures stakeholder needs are fulfilled. He/she plans for the schedule, fixed costs, functional completeness of the project, and designate responsibilities (Markgraff, 2017). The project manager establishes priorities for the project and how all team members will contribute to the WBS. The WBS will include the project end date, scope, budget, and the distribution of resources. The project manager will delegate tasks to the team members by determining what is needed to complete the WBS. The project manager also ensures the deliverables are defined and explained at the end of each outlined project tasks. By completing each of these, the WBS will ensure planning is consistent and yields an effective project execution.

Project Leader Strategies for Interpreting Project Scope Statement

The scope statement specifies what a project will and will not deliver. The scope statement reduces the chances of misunderstandings with key stakeholders, which may derail the entire project. Therefore, a project leader will need to interpret the project scope statement by using it as a guide to evaluate all change requests to control scope creep. Further, the project leader should ensure that the scope statement is customer oriented and meets the product acceptance criteria in addition to having the required deliverables, exclusions, constraints, and assumptions (Meredith & Mantel Jr., 2011).

Conducting relevant research entails seeking the information one needs, and it requires the project leader take time and proceed with care. Further, the project leader will need to get organized, articulate his/her topic, and locate background information. One will also need to identify the information needs, list concepts and keywords for databases and search engines in addition to considering the scope of the topic before conducting searches (Project Management Institute, 2008). Such will be followed by an evaluation of information sources and an analysis and adjustment of the research strategy.

Developing the WBS will involve meeting with the project team members and experts and breaking down the work to its lowest level or constituent tasks. One will continue dividing the tasks to a level of simplification that allows a dedicated team of staff to handle each task. It will also entail dividing the tasks and performing them within a reasonable time to ensure tracking of the project (Demeulemeester & Herroelen, 2006).

Presenting Information for Stakeholder Support

The project manager will present the correct information to stakeholders without overloading them with irrelevant reams of documents to generate support for the project. The PM will plan his communications, understand the type of information each team member needs, and use communication methods, such as technology-assisted meetings and face-to-face meetings. Other means include telephone calls, elevator conversations with upward stakeholders, corridor conversations with peers, and formal structured communication, for example, progress reports, project documentation, issues logs, action lists, and risk registers.

Project Background

OLLO is a small business e-commerce company specializing in mail-order retail. The company has a functional organizational structure and currently has one-hundred and fifty employees based in domestic and international locations. As part of its strategic growth plan for the next two years the company has a goal to increase in sales by 30% and incrementally increase staff by 15% over the next year to support the projected revenue growth. Domestic offices are being asked to support this effort by creating a plan for the next 2 years to increase sales and support growth in internal staff over the next year.

OLLO WBS

The Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is a visual depiction of the work that must be complete. It begins by listing major deliverables at the highest level (Level 1) and then using a decomposition technique drills down to the lowest unit of work that must be complete for successful implementation. The lowest level of work activity is referred to as the work package. This unit of work is like a project within the project. It is detailed enough to facilitate further planning and control and can be assigned to one person who can estimate the schedule and cost and who can be held responsible for its completion.

For the OLLO project the WBS picks up making an assumption that all aspects of the initiation phase have been complete. This includes the project charter and scope statement which are needed to begin this work. The OLLO WBS outlines four major milestones that need to be complete as well as the sub-level tasks. The major milestones are as follows:

• Strategic Plan Overview – this milestone includes tasks that review the SWOT analysis for the company, assess the current state relative to sales, marketing, and staff, and seeks to identify internal strengths and weaknesses. These findings are important to gain baseline knowledge to prepare and propose a plan for increased revenue over a two-year fiscal period.

• Sales Strategy – this milestone looks at two aspects of the business. First, an assessment is done to review the past two year’s sales data and to review the current product pricing structure to look for trends, gaps, and areas of opportunity. It also takes a look at the pricing structure as it aligns with industry competition to determine if the company has a competitive advantage in the pricing of its product offerings. Second, the milestone reviews all aspects of the back-end distribution process – processing, packaging, and shipping distribution. This is done to identify any opportunities to streamline the process and create work efficiencies; thereby increasing customer satisfaction with delivery time.

• Marketing Strategy – this milestone looks at the current marketing strategy for the company. The assessment reviews the past two year’s marketing strategy and looks for trends and gaps paralleled with the sales data obtain during review of the sales strategy. This includes a survey of the current customer base to see what is working well and to identify areas of opportunity. This also considers what communication strategy is being used to reach customers about product offerings and sales promotions.

• Staff Increase – this milestone reviews the current staffing model to determine in which functional area incremental increases of staff will be needed to support sales projections of this initiative.

Below you will find the WBS for the OLLO Sales Increase initiative. The WBS Dictionary has been incorporated into the MS Project WBS outline. The dictionary provides a definition of each work packages and an explanation of the scope for those assigned to complete that tasks. Included for each tasks is the control number, level of effort, definition, and resource assignment.

OLLO WBS with Dictionary

Tasks Justifications

In creating the WBS the project leader must consider the scope statement of the project to determine the proper order to use in determining the layout of the WBS. Listed below you will find justification explanations explaining the rationale used when constructing this WBS based on the desire outcome:

Strategic Plan Assessment

Before beginning it was important to understand the current state and factors that had been used to establish the current processes. As project leader I made a decision that before proposing a plan for increase sales it was important to understand the internal strengths and weaknesses of the company. It was important to understand the current sales strategy, marketing strategy, how customer viewed the cost value of the offerings, and what gaps existed in the current processes. Assessing this information before proposing a new plan is critical to ensure old patterns are not repeated and to ensure the new plan will meet the desire goal. Completing an assessment is an effective tool to use in the initiation phase of any project. It helps the team get to the root cause of the gap and ensures moving forward the correct project tasks are being targeted toward solving or affecting a change related to the correct issue or challenge. This assessment of baseline historical data is critical to the success of the project.

Sales Strategy

Next a decision was made to examine the current sales strategy. Here it is important to understand, from the customer’s perspective, how the company is meeting their demands through the product and services offered. This information is important because it ensures offering of the right product at the right price point. As with other mail order companies OLLO sales consist of a variety of products. In analyzing the previous sales trends most frequently purchased items were in the categories of electronics, technology, video games, toys, stationary, and miscellaneous novelty items. The data seems to indicate pricing seemed to be a factor in deciding which product to purchase when the item was offer by multiple vendors. Sales over the past two fiscal years for OLLO averaged 1.2 million dollars. Most of the sales for the respective years were generated during the fourth quarter (65%). This would indicate customer purchases are seasonal or event driven. Based on this, the proposed plan would be to hold 8 sales events (one each quarter for two years). Also making adjustments to price offerings and having special event sales should meet the goal of the 30% increase in sales in 2 years.

Marketing Strategy

Next the project leader selected to examine the current marketing strategy to ensure it was appealing to the company’s customer. In the ecommerce and mail-order industry success is contributed partly upon an effective marketing strategy. Marketing is visual. An advertising strategy must appeal to the senses of the target buyer by being attractive, stimulating and so enticing it makes the customer what to buy the product. Justification of this milestone is to ensure OLLO has an appealing presence. Findings indicated that although sales were consistent there was no clear marketing plan targeted toward marketing products and services in a thought provoking customer centered manner. Currently most marketing of products were done through direct mail offering and email. There was very little use of the website or other technology to reach the customer. Based on feedback from customers, whose demographic indicate women between the age of twenty – five and thirty-six, more of an internet presence would make buying more appealing. Plan proposes development of an APP. This would be similar to other smart phone apps. The APP would allow for push notifications of sales to all mobile devices and allow a way to promote product sales events. Strategic email and app notifications at strategic intervals (week before, 3 days before, and day of sale) should help with increase sales. Also plan to offer free shipping for orders exceeding a certain price point.

Staff Increase

Next was to examine the current staffing model to identify which functional groups would need incremental increases in staff to support the increase in sales and the timely distribution and delivery of customer purchases. Justification for looking at this dimension is to assess where people are needed based on proposed plan to meet sales demands. As previously mentioned OLLO has a current staff of one-hundred and fifty employees over seven functional areas. The organizational chart below is a functional hierarchical depiction of the current staffing model. Numbers appearing in parenthesis indicate number of people in each position.

The project deliverable is to increase staff over a 12-month period by fifteen percent. That would be an additional fifteen people. Based on recommended and proposed changes to sales and marketing the following functional areas would need additional staff to support the project initiative:

Conclusion

The WBS is a deliverable aligned hierarchical breakdown of tasks to be completed by the team (Wrike, 2017). An effective WBS helps project manager presents the correct information to stakeholders without overloading them with irrelevant reams of documents to generate support for the project. In creating the WBS the project leader considered the scope statement of the project to determine the proper order to use in determining the layout. The OLLO WBS utilizes the decomposition technique to identify the tasks that must be completed to accomplish an increase in sales by 30% over the next 2 years and a growth in internal staff by 15% over the next year to support this effort. The project manager’s role in establishing the OLLO WBS includes: distinguishing time-limited activities and allotting fixed time frames and costs, which ensures the needs of stakeholders is fulfilled. The WBS dictionary provides a definition of each work packages and an explanation of the scope for those assigned to complete that task. By completing the WBS, the project leader will ensure planning is consistent and yields an effective project execution.

References

Demeulemeester, E. L. and Herroelen, W. S. (2006). Project Scheduling: A Research Handbook (Vol. 49). New York, NY: Springer Science & Business Media.

Meredith, J. R. and Mantel Jr, S. J. (2011). Project Management: A Managerial Approach. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Markgraff, B. (2017). The Importance of a Work Breakdown Structure. Retrieved from

http://smallbusiness.chron.com/importance-work-breakdown-structure-54294.html

Project Management Institute. (2008). A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® guide) 4th Ed. Newtown Square, PA: Author.

Wrike. (2017). What is Work Breakdown Structure in Project Management? Retrieved from

https://www.wrike.com/project-management-guide/faq/what-is-work-breakdown-structure-in-project-management/