There’s no right or wrong way to create a WBS. You can draw an elaborate decomposition on a whiteboard, sketch it out on a cocktail napkin, or be more technical and use a piece of software such as Microsoft Project or even Excel, Visio, or PowerPoint. It is best, however, to use some common terminology when addressing your WBS.

A project, of course, is a complete piece of work that has a definite end date, produces a defined set of deliverables, and is an investment by an organization. For example, the software application that allows web users to search a database of boots requires a scope, defined deliverable, commitment of resources, and targeted end date.

Within the project there are phases. Well, technically there don’t have to be any phases, but most projects have clear identifiable phases that segment the project work. A phase is a portion of the project that typically must be completed before the next phase can begin. Each phase has a set deadline. For example, the cowboy boot database project could have four phases: creation of the database, creation of the application, creation of the web interface, and troubleshooting and implementation. Typically, phases do not overlap each other in production, but it is possible that they can as they do in this example; each phase, while reliant on the others, could be completed in parallel rather than sequentially.