Question

Work decomposition, or breaking down an activity into smaller parts, is a vital skill for project managers. How would you break down an activity that you knew very little or nothing about?

Answer 1

Work decomposition is actually quite an effective method by which an activity is broken down into smaller parts and distribute the same and assign in order to get it done by parallel teams. With the way described here it is quite evident that we need to possess sound knowledge while disintegrating such an activity or else we may end up creating smaller activities that may not contribute towards the completion of the project. Breaking down an activity regarding which we have very little kknowdge is difficult and therefore in order to accomplish the objectives, we need to create an effective team who will be responsible for the decomposition and as a manager I need to ensure that the knowledge sources are identified and used as well.

We need to take things slow here and may also formulate alternatives in tasks which we are not aware of so that one of them will work for the case. The objective is to reduce the efforts and time and hence we need to have more and better alternatives for each step.