LEAD 4033 Module 2 Work Breakdown Structure and Schedule Example

Breaking Down the Second Clinic: A Work Breakdown Structure and Critical Path Schedule

Student Name

American College of Education

LEAD4033: Project Management

Module 2 Assignment

Instructor Name

October 19, 2026

Introduction

The charter for our practice's second clinic in Jeffersontown set an opening date of September 13, 2027, eight milestones and a budget of $1,200,000. A charter states what will be delivered, but it does not show the work needed to deliver it or whether the date is achievable. This paper builds that bridge. It breaks the project into a work breakdown structure, estimates how long each piece of work will take, links the pieces by their dependencies, identifies the critical path and explains how the schedule will be displayed and controlled. The schedule covers about thirty-four weeks, from charter approval on January 15 to the public opening.

Building the Work Breakdown Structure

I built the work breakdown structure from the charter's deliverables downward rather than from a list of tasks upward, so that every piece of work traces to something the project must produce. The structure has nine first-level branches: 1.0 project management; 2.0 site and lease; 3.0 design and permits; 4.0 build-out; 5.0 equipment and technology; 6.0 staffing; 7.0 registrations; 8.0 launch marketing; and 9.0 opening and closeout. Each branch is broken down until the lowest level, the work package, is small enough to estimate, assign to one person and check off. I used a rough rule that no work package should take more than four weeks or belong to more than one owner. The result is fifty-two work packages.

Examples of the Breakdown

Two branches illustrate the structure. Branch 5.0, equipment and technology, divides into 5.1 medical equipment, 5.2 technology and phones and 5.3 furniture. Under 5.1 sit work packages such as 5.1.1 final equipment list, 5.1.2 quotes and orders, 5.1.3 delivery and installation of the x-ray unit, 5.1.4 delivery and installation of anesthesia machines and monitors, 5.1.5 laboratory analyzers and 5.1.6 testing and calibration. Branch 6.0, staffing, divides into 6.1 veterinarian recruitment, 6.2 support staff recruitment, 6.3 onboarding paperwork and 6.4 training, with training split into 6.4.1 software, 6.4.2 safety and radiation procedures, 6.4.3 client service and 6.4.4 practice runs in the new building. A WBS dictionary records each package's owner, deliverable and acceptance standard, so that "done" means the same thing to everyone.

Estimating Durations

Estimates came from three sources: quotes from the contractor and vendors, the experience of a colleague who opened a clinic in Lexington two years ago and our own records of hiring times. Project estimates tend to be optimistic because planners imagine their own project going smoothly and overlook how similar projects actually went. Flyvbjerg (2006) recommended reference class forecasting, which bases estimates on the outcomes of a group of comparable past projects rather than on the details of the current one. I applied a simple version of that idea. My colleague's build-out ran five weeks longer than planned, and two other local clinics reported permit reviews of five to seven weeks, so I lengthened the contractor's ten-week estimate for construction to thirteen weeks and planned four weeks for permit review even though the city's published target is three.

Dependencies

Most of the dependencies are finish-to-start: one task must be finished before the next can begin. The lease must be signed before the architect can measure the space, design must be approved before the permit application, and the permit must be issued before construction starts. Equipment cannot be installed until the walls, plumbing and electrical work are complete, and the x-ray room needs its shielding inspected before the unit is mounted. Registrations depend on the lease because they require the clinic's address. A few dependencies are start-to-start with a lag. Ordering the x-ray and anesthesia equipment can start two weeks after construction begins, because the vendors quote lead times of ten to twelve weeks and waiting until construction ends would push the opening back.

The Critical Path

The critical-path method, developed in the late 1950s, finds the longest chain of dependent activities through a project, because that chain sets the earliest possible finish date (Kelley, 1961). Our critical path runs as follows: lease negotiation and signing, six weeks, ending February 26; design, five weeks, ending April 2; permit review, four weeks, ending April 30; construction and final inspection, thirteen weeks, ending July 30; equipment installation and testing, two weeks, ending August 13; on-site training and practice runs, three weeks, ending September 3; and soft opening for existing clients beginning September 7, followed by the public opening on September 13. Any day lost on these activities is a day lost on the opening date unless it is recovered later. The path has almost no slack, which is why the risk plan in Module 4 focuses on it.

Where There Is Float

Activities off the critical path have float, time they can slip without delaying the opening. Veterinarian recruitment starts in February and needs to finish by mid-July, which leaves about six weeks of float, although the risk of a tight hiring market makes me treat it as nearly critical. Support staff recruitment has about eight weeks of float. Launch marketing, which starts in July, has about two weeks. The registrations, filed in early March, have several months of float but must not be forgotten, because the clinic cannot dispense controlled drugs or take radiographs without them. Showing float clearly helps me decide where to move people when the critical path needs help.

The Gantt Chart

The schedule will be displayed as a Gantt chart, with the nine WBS branches as rows and weeks across the top. Critical-path activities appear in red, other activities in blue and milestones as diamonds on their dates. Float is shown as a thin line extending from each noncritical bar. The chart is kept in a shared project file, updated every Friday and printed for the partners' monthly meeting. A one-page milestone summary goes to the whole staff each month, because people at the original clinic want to know when changes will affect them without reading a detailed chart.

Controlling the Schedule

A schedule is only useful if it is kept current. Pinto and Slevin (1987) identified a clear schedule and plan, along with monitoring and feedback, among the factors most closely tied to successful project implementation. Each Friday, owners of active work packages will report percent complete and any expected change to the finish date. If a critical-path activity slips by more than three working days, I will decide with the sponsor whether to recover the time, for example by adding a second crew or overlapping training with the end of installation, or to accept the change and inform stakeholders. The baseline schedule will be saved at charter approval so that every later version can be compared with the original plan.

Conclusion

The work breakdown structure turns the charter's deliverables into fifty-two manageable work packages, and the schedule shows how they fit together in thirty-four weeks. The critical path, from lease to opening, leaves little room for delay, so estimates were lengthened with outside experience, long-lead equipment orders were moved earlier and weekly updates will track progress. Module 3 assigns resources and builds the detailed budget for this schedule.

References

Flyvbjerg, B. (2006). From Nobel Prize to project management: Getting risks right. Project Management Journal, 37(3), 5-15. https://doi.org/10.1177/875697280603700302

Kelley, J. E. (1961). Critical-path planning and scheduling: Mathematical basis. Operations Research, 9(3), 296-320. https://doi.org/10.1287/opre.9.3.296

Pinto, J. K., & Slevin, D. P. (1987). Critical factors in successful project implementation. IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, EM-34(1), 22-27. https://doi.org/10.1109/TEM.1987.6498856