Utilizing Work Breakdown Structures and the Responsibility Matrix: Closing the Gap in Systems and Costs Analysis

Work Breakdown Structures(WBS) and the WBS dictionary are key to establishing a well developed project plan.

Assessing and developing a realistic baseline and budget in the planning stages is a critical component to the success of a project.

The procurement, installation and turnover maintenance of building projects can comprise of approximately thirty percent of the overall project costs. Utilization of work breakdown structures, the stakeholder register and the responsibility matrices can greatly assist in closing the gap in evaluating interrelated systems and contribute to the development of an evaluated projected costs analysis.

Project cost modeling consists of establishing a well-defined budget in accordance with a careful and realistic assessment of the project baseline. Estimating the associated project cost can involve utilizing a top –down, bottom-up or parametric approach with dependencies on project stage or phase.

A simple, yet proven approach to capture all the work and only the work required for the project is to formulate the work breakdown structure between bid packages and tabulations. The criteria is developed from the thorough review of construct ability, specifications and requirements assessments, contract documents, scopes of work and stakeholder requirements.

The collaboration of trade activity within those documents creates work packages that align with the responsibility matrix identifying trade, contract and management points of contact.

As the detail of the work and logistics is clarified and progressively elaborated, general trade work and general conditions are assigned and together evolve into the WBS and WBS Dictionary. A systems chart can be created to identify systems(input), subsystems(tools/techniques/equipment/devices) and functional end user services or establish product/project completion(output)(ITTO).

This can be a great tool for team members to cross reference and confirm where work relevant to their scopes may already be purchased and serves to evaluate and mitigate scopes of work assignments and contract duplicity.

Utilizing this methodology can be instrumental in establishing project management processes that cover all the work included and is helpful in identifying potential gaps in coverage that will put your team miles ahead in mitigating potential risks on your projects. NFB

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