WBStool: A Free Software to Create Work Breakdown Structure

In this article, we will learn about a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) maker software for Windows platform. A Work Breakdown Structure is a hierarchical diagram used in Project Management which systematically divides different phases, activities, and tasks of a project. The tasks can be scheduled and it also gives out a plan for cost estimation and control.

WBSTool is a free software which allows you to create WBS which is Work Breakdown Structure. Besides WBS, it even allows you to create GANTT chart and Cost chart. Before we start with knowing about features of this software, one thing to take care of is that its interface is in the German language by default. You may change it to English by navigating to Language section in Options menu. Now let’s see how you can create work breakdown structure with this free software.

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How to create Work Breakdown Structure:

Its main screen contains only a few menu elements. Before you create a WBS, you may configure some basic properties of a project which can be done by using the Options menu. You may enable or disable Level0, add your currency symbol, enter effort unit (PersonHours or PersonDays) and cost per effort unit, etc. Now let’s have a look at the steps for how to create work breakdown structure with this free software:

• You may start creating a new WBS project from its Project menu. It adds a default card to the screen which can be titled as the name of your project.
• By right-clicking on the project card, you may start adding tasks and subtasks to create a hierarchical decomposition of all tasks of a project. By adding primary tasks and then subtasks to those primary tasks, you will be able to create a work breakdown structure for a project.
• You may name each task and schedule tasks by accessing “Properties” option from the right-click menu of a task.

• It also allows you to configure other properties of a task using right-click menu. You may “increase or decrease level of a task”, “add a task or subtask to started, finished, or milestone category”, copy a task, etc.

• It allows you to change the project view to a GANTT Chart which you can view in below screenshot.

• You may also checkout the cost chart for the built project. The cost chart shows planned work hour and estimated cost.

• After making a work breakdown structure diagram, you may copy it as an image, save it as an XML file, or print the WBS chart.

Advantages of WBSTool:

• It is a portable desktop application. This means you can directly run it without installing it on a system.
• It is a handy application to create work breakdown structure diagram, and also GANTT and cost charts.
• You may change appearance of the work breakdown structure diagram by customizing card type, background color, started task color, finished task color, planned task color, overdue task color.
• It is a multilingual software which offers support to languages like English, German, Romanian, French, Portuguese, etc.

Conclusion:

WBStool is a simple desktop application which allows you to create work breakdown structures with so much of ease. WBS is widely used in project management to help you decompose a project into simpler tasks to easily supervise it. Some of its modules are outdated and don’t work, but still, it serves our main purpose which is to create WBS diagram. Besides WBS, you are also allowed to generate a GANTT chart and Cost chart for a project. You can try this free software and do leave comment to let me know your review for the same.