The WBS serves as a perfect framework for project status reporting
Your WBS is the list of everything that needs to get done to complete the project. It’s a ready-made framework for monitoring and statusing the project.
Let’s begin with the basic structure of the WBS:
| WBS Code | WBS Description |
| 100 | Project Management |
| 200 | Product |
| 200.1 | Product Requirements |
| 200.1.1 | Stakeholder Requirements |
| 200.1.2 | System Requirements |
| 200.2 | Product Design |
| 200.3 | Product Build |
| 200.4 | Product Testing |
| 200.5 | Product Deployment |
If we are going to use this for reporting, we need to include who’s in charge of delivering each WBS Item. Generally, this can be the Project Manager for that piece of work.
| WBS Code | WBS Description | Responsible |
| 100 | Project Management | PM |
| 200 | Product | n/a |
| 200.1 | Product Requirements | n/a |
| 200.1.1 | Stakeholder Requirements | Bill F |
| 200.1.2 | System Requirements | Jane T |
| 200.2 | Product Design | John X |
| 200.3 | Product Build | Mary G |
| 200.4 | Product Testing | Keith D |
| 200.5 | Product Deployment | Sara S |
The updated table above shows which manager or lead has responsibility for delivering the work described in each WBS entry. The items 200 – Product, and 200.1 Product Requirements have no designated responsible person because all the work under them are parcelled out to the work subitems under them.
Now we need to update the table to show the status.
| WBS Code | WBS Description | Responsible | Status |
| 100 | Project Management | PM | n/a |
| 200 | Product | n/a | Started |
| 200.1 | Product Requirements | n/a | Started |
| 200.1.1 | Stakeholder Requirements | Bill F | Completed |
| 200.1.2 | System Requirements | Jane T | 70% |
| 200.2 | Product Design | John X | NYS |
| 200.3 | Product Build | Mary G | NYS |
| 200.4 | Product Testing | Keith D | 10% |
| 200.5 | Product Deployment | Sara S | NYS |
In the above update, we see that item 200.1.1 has been completed, 200.1.2 is 70% completed, some of the work are Not Yet Started. Work 100 – Project Management will have no status because it is ongoing work, while 200 and 200.1 will have only Started at their level. They will become Completed when all the sub-items under them have been completed.
The problem with the above is that it says nothing about whether the project is going according to schedule, going ahead, or being delayed.
For that we can use Earned Values to show the status of the work.
And because the status date of each individual work item may differ, it might be useful to add another column to indicate the as-of status date for that piece of work.
