Black indicates that, “the Work Package is at the lowest level of project planning, control and reporting. The challenge in developing work packages is to connect all of them to some element of the project scope so that all the work required to support the stakeholder requirements is planned, authorized, allocated, tracked, and completed. When all of the work packages are completed, the project is completed” (Black, 2002). Read William Malsam’s blog post at the link below, and return to comment on how breaking work down into work packages has benefited your project management in the past.

For a project to be successful, you need to get organized. By providing structure to your project scope, you get some control over the project work and increase the chance that you’ll succeed.

Before you get started, you need to figure out every step in the project scope. That’s where a work package comes in.

What Is a Work Package?

A work package is a sequence of activities that leads to a deliverable when using a work breakdown structure (WBS). to map your project scope. In a sense,it’s a sub-project of the larger project.

There’s a difference, however, between a work package and an activity in a project. A work package is at a higher level in the WBS hierarchy than an activity.

This distinction is important for project managers, but not critical to the success of a project. Whatever language you use to define these building blocks as you fill in your WBS, they all lead to the same destination—the completion of your project.

Work packages are used in earned value management projects to integrate schedule, cost and scope management data to measure project performance…Read More »

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Black, F. W. (2002). Top down-bottom up project management. Paper presented at Project Management Institute Annual Seminars & Symposium, San Antonio, TX. Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute.