Task breakdown tools and techniques

If you understand which task breakdown tools and techniques are best to use in your specific projects and programs you can improve the way you plan, implement and control project/program activities. Making a task breakdown plan allows you to outline a hierarchical decomposition of the entire work that should be accomplished to reach established objectives and produce expected deliverables. In order to be successful, you need to understand how to develop such a plan and how to apply task breakdown tools and techniques to your project considering a specific methodology used to manage this particular project.

There are many project management methodologies, such as PMBOK, Agile, Scrum, Waterfall, PRINCE2. Almost every methodology requires using task breakdown lists and sheets to outline and organize key components of the work to be executed. For instance, Scrum task breakdown assumes that each sprint backlog (a list of work items Scrum team needs to complete within 1 sprint) should address a sequence of simple tasks (task breakdown sheet) in which 1 task should be done within 4-16 hours. 

If this task is completed out of this time period (less than 4 hours but more than 16 hours) such a situation can be regarded as time wasting. Thus, it means that Scrum project managers need to develop their task breakdown charts and plans that include work items (simple tasks and jobs) with durations of 4-16 hours (neither more nor less).

When you plan for task breakdown elements you need to remember that your task decomposition defines the total scope of your project. It means that along with working time required for doing the project work, such constraints as Cost and Budget should be also regarded and counted. For instance, in Agile task breakdown a feature development approach is usually used to define working hours required for producing planned product features as well as to set up budget and estimate cost per feature. Such an approach for task breakdown in Agile lets establish better communication between the customer and the development team. It also helps set right priorities in task breakdown worksheets and measure work against actually produced business values.

Using project management software helps identify and measure all the constraints (Time, Budget and Cost) when developing task breakdown in Scrum, Agile or any other PM methodology. Such software lets use templates to quickly and easily define numerous task breakdown elements. For instance, in VIP Task Manager you can make templates of tasks and groups to create hierarchies, project trees and categories. This PM program lets use task breakdown tools and techniques to create simple tasks and hierarchical groups, set budget per task, calculate cost per task, and estimate the total amount of working hours required for delivering projects. VIP Task Manager combines features that help you involve your team in collaborative projects and group activities.