Appendix B

Evolution of the Project Management Institute Practice Standard for Work Breakdown Structures

B.1 Initial Development: 1999–2001

During the development and subsequent publication by the Project Management Institute (PMI®) of A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide), it was recognized that project management practitioners and other stakeholders would be aided by more in-depth treatment of the listed inputs, tools and techniques, and outputs. Consequently, in early 1998, PMI asked for volunteers to develop the first such practice standard, specifically on the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). A volunteer team was assembled and during the year worked through a number of drafts and revision cycles.

In early 1999, PMI Project Management Standards Program Team reviewed the draft and recommended the completion of the Practice Standard. In late spring 1999, Kim Colenso was approved as the new project manager for the Practice Standard. He was tasked to form a new team to make minor modifications to the current draft, and add example WBSs. The plan was to publish the Practice Standard for Work Breakdown Structures in an Exposure Draft to the PMI membership and other affected parties by the summer of 2000, and a final document would be published as a PMI Standard in 2001.

A team was assembled during the summer and fall of 1999 through solicitation of participation from the PMI Specific Interest Groups and other volunteer sources. During this period, a controversy developed within the project team as to whether or not an activity was or should be part of the WBS. Through further discussion among the project team and among the PMI Project Management Standards Program Member Advisory Group, the issue was resolved, and an article describing the outcome was published in the PM Network in April 2000 (see References).

The project team implemented a formal change-control procedure to guide and control the evolution of the practice standard. This procedure required all proposed changes to be documented and approved by the project team. As a result of this process, the following events occurred:

• The team judged the structure of the specific working draft supplied by the PMI Project Management Standards Program Team to be unsatisfactory. With the approval of the PMI Project Management Standards Program Team, that draft was replaced with the earlier November 1998 draft, to which all further changes were applied.
• Over forty formal change requests were submitted and approved by the team between October 1999 and April 2000. Another six were disapproved, as the arguments were deemed unpersuasive.
• Twelve WBS examples were approved and incorporated as Appendices D through N of this practice standard.

The revised draft was submitted to the PMI Project Management Standards Program Team in May 2000 for consideration as the exposure draft to be circulated among PMI membership and other affected parties. Following approval by the PMI Project Management Standards Program Team, the proposed exposure draft was submitted for formal review to six other knowledge experts. The team evaluated the comments from these six reviewers and the PMI Project Management Standards Program Team. A final draft was then submitted to the PMI Project Management Standards Program Team and approved for the exposure draft.

The exposure draft was submitted for public review on 29 September 2000, with an exposure closure on 30 November 2000. During this period, 488 comments were received. All comments that the project team accepted for the current version have been incorporated.

When we look at the PMBOK® Guide—Third Edition, it is a remarkable achievement. It has gone through an evolutionary process for fourteen years. Each edition has improved upon the previous version. After several editions, the result is an extremely refined and powerful document. The same will be true for the Practice Standard for Work Breakdown Structures. It has gone through its initial development. Now it is ready to begin its journey through the refinement process.

B.2 Second Edition: 2003–2006

In April of 2003, the Practice Standard for Work Breakdown Structures update team received its charter from the PMI Standards MAG (Membership Advisory Group) and began the update to the first practice standard published by PMI. Following guidance received from the Standards Manager and MAG regarding approach, strategy, objectives, content, size, and structure, the team examined the existing practice standard as well as comments and recommendations received during the previous review and publication cycles. The update team also conducted surveys of project managers from a cross section of industries.

This analysis, which spanned a number of months, revealed the need for significant change to the practice standard to clarify the guidance it provides and improve its relevance. To summarize, the update team found there was a need to:

• Ensure the practice standard provides a consistent approach to WBS development throughout the body of the document
• Update the content to bring guidance in line with current practice and WBS application
• Use examples and figures throughout to clarify guidance provided
• Provide new material within the practice standard to clearly explain differences between poorly and well-constructed work breakdown structures
• Ensure the appendices reflect the guidance provided in the practice standard and provide a greater number of varied examples
• Provide a breakdown (WBS example) of the project management work defined by the PMBOK® Guide—Third Edition
• Add templates (WBS examples) that can be extracted and modified by practitioners who purchase the practice standard
• Provide a detailed perspective of the historic evolution of the concepts relating to work breakdown structures
• Synchronize the WBS practice standard with the latest release of the PMBOK® Guide—Third Edition
• Limit the content to WBS-related topics only, removing content related to scheduling, Earned Value Management and other non-WBS items.

With these items as an outline for the “desired outcome” and the analysis described above as the starting point, the update team began framing the second edition of the practice standard. By using an iterative development process, internal team comment review cycles, as well as SME (Subject Matter Expert) reviews and interviews, the team developed the latest updates to the practice standard content. The team additionally worked closely with PMI's standards organization to design the appropriate context for publication of the new standard—reflecting latest technology and the needs of the project management community at large.

As a result, the updated standard, Practice Standard for Work Breakdown Structures—Second Edition, now contains the following changes and improvements:

• Material in each of the original chapters has been rewritten for clarity
• A new chapter on WBS Quality was added
• The original appendices were revised to reflect current practice and quality attributes
• Appendices have been added to illuminate various methods for representing the WBS
• A CD-ROM is included with the practice standard and will contain the body of the practice standard, the appendices, and the white paper
• All of the examples found in the appendices will be extractable from the CD-Rom as templates for use in WBS development

Most importantly, the update team worked to ensure synchronization among the latest release of the Practice Standard for Work Breakdown Structures, the PMBOK® Guide—Third Edition, the current Earned Value Management Practice Standard, and the latest release of PMI's Lexicon for Project Management, while at the same time partnering with the Practice Standard for Scheduling Team and anticipating the release of a new Practice Standard for Scheduling.

To support the needs of project managers in today's environment, this updated practice standard provides the reader with new guidance regarding WBS construction and quality attributes. Beyond this, the update to the practice standard will be published as a hardcopy document—and will include a CD-ROM to provide the reader with the ability to scan and search the entire document for specific words or content. The CD-ROM will also carry copies of each of the appendices found in the practice standard. The electronic versions of the appendices will be presented as templates that can be, extracted, copied and modified by project managers for use in their own projects and programs.

We believe the latest release of the Practice Standard for Work Breakdown Structures reflects the outstanding achievement of the team that created the first edition and continues the tradition of extending and enhancing the document while setting the stage for the continued evolution of the practice standard.