Some people think from the top down and consider the high-level deliverables or activities required to accomplish project objectives. Others take a bottom-up approach, focusing on details that must be completed. When building a work breakdown structure (WBS), use these differences to your advantage.

Here’s how to leverage top down and bottom up thinking when building a WBS:

1. Sketch a high-level set of activities or deliverables. A WBS is built by grouping similar activities or deliverables. The key is to be consistent and not mix the two constructs. Use your best top-down thinkers to create a high-level grouping for your project. Give your team time to consider major items that fall into each group. These major items can be broken down further as appropriate.
2. Review and align with your team. Develop a common understanding of the work that the WBS represents and ensure there is no duplication of the major items captured in this initial version of the WBS. (Senior team members confer to determine whether there is duplication.) Determine how much detail is required to complete the WBS and determine the best individuals to add the necessary detail.
3. Draft the detailed tasks for each major item. Now is the time for your bottom-up thinkers to shine! Bring your team together and brainstorm the tasks that must be completed to deliver your project. Allocate those tasks to the appropriate major items. Identify and resolve activity overlaps or duplications that may surface. Note: Your team doesn’t have to worry about sequencing your tasks at this point. Sequencing will be done later during schedule development.
4. Finalize the WBS. Gather your team and review the final, detailed draft of the WBS. Talk with your top-down thinkers to ensure the overall approach is sound. Your bottom-up thinkers should be confident all the details are covered. If everyone is happy, you’re done!

Note: For more complicated projects or if significant questions arise, you can repeat steps 2 and 3.

For more about project management, check out my LinkedIn Learning Project Management Foundations course.

Not every project is suitable for agile. To succeed with agile be sure to use sound criteria to qualify your projects as good agile candidates. Here are things to consider when establishing your agile qualification criteria:   

• Project priority to obtain the right staff. Having the appropriate technical and business team members dedicated to the project is crucial. Agile produces results quickly and it’s time-intensive for participants. Agile requires critical business and technical team members who are vital to your business operations. So it’s important to prioritize their time so they can contribute to the project. Accepting the difficult tradeoffs between project work and operational considerations is key.

• Appropriate breadth of knowledge. In-depth knowledge of the business and technical areas touched by the project is crucial. Business experts working closely with expert technical team members is the heart of the agile approach. The primary characteristic that makes agile methodologies agile is the method’s responsiveness to evolving needs. Knowledgeable technical and business people need to consistently reassess the project’s product, the business’s needs at a macro and micro-level, and the priority of the functions needed by the end customer. Without knowledge and availability for those assessments, the premise of agile methods crumbles.

• Sponsor with an agile mindset. The sponsor must be willing to participate in frequent reviews of the evolving product, which are fundamental to the agile approach.  On the other hand, a sponsor who wants a linear, methodical set of objectives delivered to a pre-conceived schedule will struggle with agile project deliverables. Agile responsiveness to changing business conditions and its learning environment are very different from traditional project methods. Sponsors who resist evolutionary nature of agile create difficulties that can sink a project.

• Ability to co-locate or simulate co-location. Agile involves deep, interactive, and sometimes challenging dialog, which produces superior outcomes. Getting the most from that dialog requires the richest environment you can create. Co-locate your project team members if possible. If you can’t, simulate co-location with the best video and audio tools you can obtain. Trying to facilitate agile dialog with sub-par communication tools is like trying to tow a big camper trailer with a lawn tractor. It just doesn’t make sense.
• Business and technical team member synergy.  Agile methodologies require dedication from business and technical experts open to supporting new ideas and each other as individuals. You need an agile coach who understands and can manage human dynamics, and who can foster an environment where team members readily share their ideas and concerns. An agile team has to get along well to be successful.

• A product that can be built iteratively. Agile’s best qualities come from delivering solutions in pieces while learning from each iteration. In addition to software products, other products can be produced this way as well. With a bit of creativity, facility moves, new process implementations, and even some construction projects can utilize agile methods. If you think of a way that your outcome can be produced in iterative steps, the project may be a candidate for agile (given the other items listed here, of course!)

For more about project management, see my Project Management Foundations course.

Bob McGannon and I talk about when project scope changes might trigger the need to revise your project definition.

Want to make project goals achievable? Make sure they’re clearly articulated, supported by key stakeholders and involve available skills. That’s no guarantee though, because other conditions can impact their achievability. Here are items to help ensure your project goals are reasonable and motivate your project team.

• A fully understood product approach. Goals become achievable when team members understand what is expected of them. Team members are more confident when they use familiar approaches to produce  project deliverables. But businesses must innovate to remain competitive and that introduces unfamiliar approaches that team members must embrace. This requires time and specialized resources to develop and practice new approaches. To support innovation and achievable goals, include funding and time in your project to help the team assimilate new approaches.

• The tool to measure success is understood. Project goals are achievable when management and the team understand how success will be measured. There are two aspects to this. First, with clear measures of success, the team can identify incremental improvements. Second, understanding metrics supports innovation, because measurement can highlight improvements that help achieve project goals.

• Applicability to business processes is understood. Project staff is more likely to understand project goals when they’re specifically tied to existing business processes. That understanding helps them focus their project effort and improves the chance that project goals will be achieved. What if new products or processes aren’t associated with existing processes? To help the team understand these items, draw parallels between existing processes and the new product and processes. Where that isn’t possible, early work to develop new processes helps teams understand the direction they need to take to achieve defined goals.

• Practical timelines. Project team members are more likely to support practical, non-arbitrary deadlines. A practical deadline means the timeframe reflects durations like those for prior projects. However, a tight deadline due to a legitimate need for the business can be reasonable, as long as management gives the team permission to use new approaches to meet the deadline. Review the rationale for proposed timelines with team members to make aggressive deadlines believable to motivated teams. (Think Apollo 11 landing on the moon prior to the end of the decade!)

To learn more, check out my Project Management Foundations course

Initial project objectives can vary from precise to vague. It’s important to ensure objectives meet the sponsor’s expectations and fit the needs of the business and key stakeholders.

Many project managers use SMART objectives, which stand for: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-constrained. But SMART objectives are only the beginning. Here are other considerations for appropriate project objectives:

• Aligned with strategy. Strategy is implemented through business change projects, but that doesn’t mean all projects are strategic. You can ensure that your project is viable and its project objectives are appropriate by understanding your organization’s strategy and by making sure that your project’s objectives and the way you achieve them don’t detract from that strategy. For example, don’t fall into the trap of using old, “reliable” technology to implement a project when the strategic direction is to use more powerful, future-proofed tools. While it may take longer, supporting the organization’s strategy is probably more important in the long run.
• Scheduled mindfully. While SMART objectives address achievability, that doesn’t mean the objective is appropriate given the current workload your critical project team members are handling. Other projects and operational responsibilities may create excessive expectations for team members. To determine what is truly achievable, you need to identify the current demand for critical team members along with the demands your project will place on them.
• The right approach. As project objectives can vary, the approach for achieving them varies as well. Having well-defined requirements that are unlikely to change and needing to support specific milestones indicate a waterfall approach is more appropriate. Conversely, loosely-defined requirements and tight deadlines indicate that agile approaches may be best. Ensure your project objectives are realistic by creating plans to deliver your project based on available staff, required timeframes and the nature of your requirements.
• Mindful of change management. While businesses need to move fast, people are limited in the magnitude of change they can successfully manage, procedurally and emotionally. Monitor the degree of change you are expecting of your business to ensure your objectives are realistic and achievable.