there are two person’s opinion about the discussion board questions. i have to reply them separately.

just give your opinion. no need for citation.

example:

reply for person 1 post……

reply for person 2 post….

person1 post (Deep)

An article titled “Work Breakdown Structure” by Taylor J. (2006), discusses about Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) and the necessary cautions to be considered while developing WBS. A work breakdown structure is a framework of every program on which the project is built because it defines in detail the work necessary to accomplish a program’s objective. According to PMBOK (2013) WBS is the hierarchical decomposition of the deliverable associated with the work of the project team. It is the most useful tool of project management, When done correctly, the WBS is the basis for project planning, scheduling, budgeting, and controlling. It is a process of subdividing project deliverable and project work into smaller, more manageable components: hardware, software, services, documentation, labor, testing, delivery, and installation. The article mentions that a typical WBS consists of project name, tasks, and sub-tasks. A well-defined WBS completely describes the project’s scope.

The author argues that defining WBS is not particularly easy for complex projects but when defined and developed correctly, it is the basis for project planning, scheduling, budgeting, and controlling. While creating the WBS, the author suggests continuing the project decomposition process only to the level that is needed to identify the task or sub-task as a work package. The author further explains that the work package can occur anywhere below the first level, but usually occurs at the fifth level and also suggests that WBS almost never needs to be developed below the fifth level. The author mentions that WBS can be presented either in indented form or the graphical (tree) form. The indented format is the most used format where each project level is indented while graphical format is an effective format for those who want visual representation of data. It is important to use numbering system while creating WBS. The author suggests that the numbering system can be numeric, alphabetic, or a combination of the two.

In addition, the article has mentioned following important guidelines to be considered while developing a WBS:

1. The project name or contract name is always the first-level entry.
2. There will be only one first-level entry for each project.
3. The first three levels of a WBS are managerial levels.
4. Technical project work usually occurs at the fourth and fifth levels.
5. The lowest level of any project is usually the fifth level.
6. Major subdivisions do not have to be reduced to the same level.

While comparing the article contents with the PMBOK Guide contents, the article has done excellent job on defining and describing all the necessary processes and elements required while defining or creating WBS. The article has not mentioned about WBS dictionary while PMBOK Guide provides a section explaining WBS dictionary and its necessary elements.

Another contrast is that article have mention the reason that WBS is not more widely used because the concept is not well understood. Even writers who espouse the virtues of WBS do not clearly explain the elements of it and how to develop one. The fact is that the literature is vague, often inconsistent, and usually incomplete about WBS development. Article have outline that its too difficult and too frustrating to use but book doesn’t talk all about this.

References

Project Management Institute (2013). A Guide to the project management body of knowledge (PMBOK Guide). Newtown Square, Pa: Project Management Institute.

Taylor, J. (2006). CHAPTER 5: The Work Breakdown Structure. Survival Guide for Project Managers (pp. 79-90). Retrieved July 11, 2017, from web.b.ebscohost.com

person 2 post:

Title: Research on Construction Schedule Management Based on BIM Technology

Authors: Xue Li, Jing Xu, Qun Zhang

Hello All,

As we learned from our readings in the PMBOK, planning schedule management is an important, and primary step in establishing a schedule for your project (A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, 2017). The plan for how you will manage the schedule is included in the essential project management plan and will dictate everything considered when developing your schedule (A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, 2017). The schedule is important for many reasons including stakeholder management, planning of activities, and preventing potential scope creep from happening (A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, 2017). This makes it more important to create a plan on how you are to develop and manage the schedule.

I found an interesting article that relates to the new trend in construction, the use of BIM technology in helping map out how a project is built. Its title is “Research on Construction Schedule Management Based on BIM Technology.” This is relevant to me because my company is starting to implement the use of BIM on all our projects. If this resource is available, I think that BIM is a powerful tool that can help many aspects of a construction project and planning for it on the schedule management plan is how it can be put to is best use. The article explains that incorporating the use of BIM as a part of the schedule management plan can drive much value for the project and take out some of the ambiguity in the planning of schedule management (Li, Xu, & Zhang, 2016).

The text states that plan schedule management is the “process for establishing the policies and procedures around planning, developing, managing and executing, and controlling of the project schedule (A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, 2017, p. 179).” The article agrees with this assessment, and demonstrates that the use of BIM and incorporating it from the beginning into a plan to use it as part of the schedule management process can aid in many ways (Li, Xu, & Zhang, 2016). First, it can help establish a baseline of duration’s needed by scoping out quantities (Li, Xu, & Zhang, 2016). Second it can help track in real time the progress of those quantities in real time to have an up to date view of where you stand in relation to completion of the activity (Li, Xu, & Zhang, 2016). From our readings in the PMBOK, knowing this information in real time, and having a plan to regularly include it in the cadence of your schedule update, can take a lot of pain out of the update and establishing process (A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, 2017). Giving this level of detail to the people with knowledge and allowing them to use their expert judgement seems to lend itself to having an overall more accurate schedule, and a easier to use plan for establishing a schedule and baseline.

Having BIM in the schedule management plan around a scope management plan also will help control scope creep, and better aid in establishing a change plan for the project that is accurate, and real time (Li, Xu, & Zhang, 2016).

References:

A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge. (2017). Newtown Square: Project Management Institute, Inc.

Li, X., Xu, J., & Zhang, Q. (2016). Research on Construction Schedule Management Based on BIM Technology. Procedia Engineering, 657-667.