Work Breakdown Structure Template

About the Work Breakdown Structure Template

Planning complex projects can be challenging. Use the work breakdown structure (WBS) template to quickly decompose the project’s total scope, including specific deliverables and activities. This helps with estimating resources and costs, creating a phased schedule of tasks, and managing each phase.

A work breakdown structure template is a project management tool that lays out everything a project must accomplish, organizes those tasks into multiple levels, and displays these elements graphically. It’s a deliverable-based approach, meaning you’ll end up with a detailed project plan of the deliverables you must create to finish the job.

When to use a work breakdown structure template

Use the WBS template when you need to deconstruct your team's work into smaller, well-defined elements to make it more manageable. The template makes it easy to keep team members informed, identify specific project deliverables, and help you develop a project schedule. The hierarchical structure makes it easier for a project manager to oversee a complex project and make sure every task gets done.

What are the 4 elements of the work breakdown structure template?

1. Hierarchy. 

Each work breakdown structure is hierarchical. That means every “child” on the graph has a hierarchical relationship with its parent task. When you add up all the “child” elements, it’ll give you a clear picture of the parent task.

2. 100% rule. 

While every work breakdown structure is a little different, they all follow the 100% rule. Every level of the graph must make up 100% of the parent level, and it must have at least two “child” elements.

3. Mutually exclusive elements. 

Every element at each level of a WBS template has to be mutually exclusive. That means there can’t be any overlap between deliverables or work. Enforcing mutual exclusivity helps cut down on miscommunication and avoid duplicate work.

4. Outcome-oriented. 

The work breakdown structure is fundamentally a deliverable-oriented system. That means your graphic depiction must focus on the outcomes rather than the activities required to produce them. A good rule of thumb is to describe elements using nouns rather than verbs.

How to create a work breakdown structure with Miro in 3 Steps

Get started by selecting the work breakdown structure template and adding it to your board. Then, follow these steps to fill it in:

1. Set goals & objectives

First, scope the entire project and make sure you understand the goals and objectives. That means determining what your project team is trying to accomplish with the project, how it fits into the broader goals of your organization.

2. Lay out deliverables

Next, catalog all of the major high-level deliverables of the project. These will be the second tier of the structure, and will be comprised of sub-projects that work towards the overall goals & objectives laid out in the first step. 

3. Break deliverables into individual tasks

Finally, break those high-level deliverables into smaller pieces for a third level of activities that need to be done to complete the project. These are the specific daily sub-tasks required to get the project off the ground and ultimately completed.

If you'd prefer to start from scratch, Miro's diagramming functionalities make it the perfect WBS creator to visualize a project's components.

Work breakdown structure example 

As a product manager, you probably need to organize projects and align different teams across product launches and updates. 

In Miro’s WBS Template, you can see the product launch steps divided into departments:

• Research 

• Design

• Development 

• QA

• Measurement 

We know that every organization is different, and for that reason, you can easily customize the Work Breakdown Structure Template to meet your specific project's needs.

To complete your WBS template, you can add the tasks under each area or department. It can be user research, product development, performance tracking, etc. Once you are done, you will be able to see the whole process at a glance.