Product based Project Planning in MS Project

Product Breakdown Structure & Work Breakdown Structure

Breakdown Structures are deliverable-oriented decompositions of a product or set of activities into smaller logically structured components. Breakdown structures can be organized by product, activity or a combination of both.

PBS

The product breakdown structure (PBS) is a hierarchical structure of products that the project will make or outcomes that it will deliver. In a product-based project management method like Prince II planning starts with the PBS. Other methodologies talk about product based Work Breakdown Structures (WBS) if they mean a PBS.

WBS

The WBS provides a hierarchical structure of project activities that organizes the team's work into manageable sections. Output of the work are the products as structured in the PBS. (WBS training )

PBS in project schedule

The structure of project schedules should be based on the Product Breakdown. This will provide the most accessible structure and will make it possible to immediately see the progress and remaining activities of the different products. In the example below we will integrate the PBS into the Gant chart, so the PBS will be part of the project schedule and does not have to be created and maintained seperately. For most projects this approach is the most efficient.

We took a random PBS from the internet and translated that into a product based project schedule.

(click to enlarge)