Creating Standard Work Breakdown Structures

When you define standard structures, you have the option of standardizing your project management so that you can use empirical values from earlier projects in new projects. Standard work breakdown structures can be used as templates to copy from (this saves time).

Another advantage of standardizing project structures is that projects become more transparent and you can compare them more easily, which enables more effective project controlling.

When you create an operating work breakdown structure, you can use a complete standard work breakdown structure as a template, or just copy parts of it. If you already have an operating work breakdown structure, you can copy parts of it into the existing project structure. In this case, you can also Add WBS elements.

You use standard work breakdown structures as templates for operative work breakdown structures. You can use standard work breakdown structures to plan the structure in advance: that is, the WBS hierarchy, organizational assignments, control data, and project documentation (long texts, PS texts).

It is not possible to plan operative data with standard work breakdown structures. For example, you cannot use a standard WBS for cost planning or time scheduling purposes. You also cannot maintain settlement rules in standard WBS elements.

Unlike operative work breakdown structures, standard work breakdown structures do not have user statuses. In the standard work breakdown structure, only the definition has a status. The WBS elements have no status, but you can already assign them a user status profile. The status of the definition is Created (standard WBS) (CRES), Released (standard WBS) (RELS) or Closed (standard WBS) (CLOS). If the status is CRES or RELS, standard work breakdown structures can be used as templates; if the status is CLOS, a standard work breakdown structure cannot be used as a template for creating either an operative or a standard WBS.