Getting Started with Work Breakdown

Projects often need to be broken down into smaller supporting projects which are then organized into a logical structure. This structure lays out the total scope of the work and is commonly called a Work Breakdown Structure. Any MOR or project in LeadFirst can have a supporting “breakdown.”
  • If a project already has a breakdown, the breakdown icon (see image below) appears beside it. You can click that to open the breakdown.
  • If a project does not yet have a breakdown, the breakdown icon appears when you hover over the project. Click that to add a new breakdown.

Work Breakdown helps you easily layout in detail all the steps to complete a project. It can be used as a simple checklist for a small project or as a complex project plan for a large initiative. You can lay out a basic task list for just you or collaborate and delegate portions of the project to your team members.


Learn more:

To learn more about projects and how to add them to your plan, see Projects - Basics of Projects

Create a simple work breakdown

Click the breakdown icon to open the work breakdown for any MOR or project.

You can also get to a MOR or project's breakdown by clicking the hyperlinked name of the

MOR/project > Breakdown tab.

Add project to your breakdown

To add a supporting project, click the blue plus >  New project.

Name the project and save it. 

Tip:

You can provide more information about this specific project (i.e. responsible party, forecast end date, overall outcome) now or later. Sometimes it is helpful to organize a simple list in the system quickly and then come back later to flesh out each supporting project in more detail.

Reorder items in your breakdown

To move items and reorder your list,
  1. Click on the drag handle (it appears on any row when you hover over it)
  2. Drag and drop it where it belongs in the list (the dark line indicates where it will land)

Archive or remove items from the breakdown

If you want to remove a project from the list,
  1. Click the project row’s three-dot menu, and either
  2. Archive item, OR
  3. Remove from Breakdown

Important:

Remove from Breakdown takes the project out of this work breakdown but leaves it active in the rest of the system. Archive Item takes the item out of view throughout the system and out of view in this work breakdown.
To retrieve an item you archived.
  1. Open the filter option in the upper right
  2. Click Include Archived
  3. All archived items will now appear in the breakdown but with a struck-out title

Find the item you want to unarchive, and
  1. Click on the three-dot row menu 
  2. Select UnArchive Item

Important:

Be sure to change your filter back to not include archived items.

Assign projects

While planning projects, work breakdown defaults the items you add to the draft stage and unassigned to anyone. To make a project “active,” assign the project to someone and then change its stage to In Progress. Here is how you do that:
1. An edit pencil appears when you hover over the responsible column of a project. Click that pencil.

2. Start typing the name of the person you want to assign the project to and select them from the dropdown list, then Save.


3. You can now see the assigned person’s initials in the responsible field. But because the project is still in the None stage it won’t yet go to their plan board. To change the project's stage, hover over the stage field and click the edit pencil.

4. Change the stage to Not Started to make it active and appear in Assignee’s Plan Board.

Learn:

To learn more about how statuses, both State and Stage, see Statuses - What Do the Different Statuses Mean?

Manage your project

If you don’t need an overly complex work breakdown, and a simple flat list of steps is sufficient, we recommend you only make the parent project (“New Website Project”) active. Then mark the supporting steps complete as your work on the project. This keeps your Plan Board from being swamped with smaller details.

Create a complex work breakdown

Complex projects can be difficult to plan for. Create a work breakdown when you need to deconstruct your team's work into smaller, well-defined elements to make it more manageable. This will make it easier to keep team members informed, develop a project schedule, and make sure every task gets done. 

Change the levels of projects

You can create as complex of a hierarchical structure as you need. Using the example below, let’s say we want to build out some supporting projects for “Design New Website.”

To start, click on the row of the project you want to add supporting projects under > click the blue plus >  New project. Name the project and Save.

The project “Buy CSS File” appears in line with the other projects. To make it a sub-project of “Design New Website, click the three-dot menu > select Move Right.

Now “Buy CSS File” supports the “Design New Website” project. You can add as many supporting projects as you need.

You can collapse and hide the supporting projects for any parent project.

You can also move projects higher in the hierarchy by moving them to the left: click the three-dot menu > Move Left.

Assign responsible parties

With your work breakdown built, you now need to delegate and schedule the work. To assign a person to a project, click on the edit pencil in the Responsible column > search for and select the person you are assigning the project to.

In our example, we assigned high-level projects to project team members. We left most of the smaller sub-projects unassigned since each team member can decide how they want to manage those supporting projects.

Schedule the work

To keep the project on schedule, set forecast end dates for the major projects in your work breakdown.  Click the edit pencil in the Forecast End column > select the due date for the project > Save.

Now we have a project schedule for our New Website Project that will allow us to deliver it by its Forecast End date.

Make projects visible by assigning a responsible person.

To ensure a project appears on the Plan Board, assign a responsible person. If a project is left unassigned, it will not show up. For large projects with multiple subprojects, consider assigning only the main project to yourself while leaving subprojects unassigned to avoid cluttering your board. To update the assignment, click the edit pencil in the Responsible column and select the appropriate person.

Learn more:

For more on how statuses work, both State and Stage, see the article Statuses - What Do the Different Statuses Mean?

Here's an example of how all the stages appear.

Show parent project

From your Plan Board or Plan, you can see if a project has a parent project. Both project names are hyperlinked so you can get to either project quickly. 

Project types

When you create a new project, you have the option to select a specific project type. You can change the project type in the Project tab when you open any project.

By default, the system suggests to you the standard project type. In the past, we utilized different project types to help distinguish the scale of projects. We are simplifying our approach and transitioning to only Projects and Professional Development. But for now, the other project types are still available for you to use. They are listed below.

  • Project | use the basic Project type for any smaller project that supports a larger project
  • Professional Development | a project specifically for your professional development

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