Read an Excerpt

1 Activity Definition (PMBOK® 6.1, Define Activities)

What: Documenting the activities resulting from the lowest level of the project work breakdown structure (WBS)

and assigning an owner to each.

When: Project planning.

Results: Clear descriptions of all identified project work and delegation of responsibility.

Verify Activities

Activity definition is a key step in project plan development. After developing the work breakdown structure (WBS), verify that all work listed is necessary. If the work at the lowest level will probably require more than a month to complete or more than 80 hours of effort, strive to break it down further.

People often overlook work related to organizational, business, or legal requirements.

Examples include preparation for project life cycle checkpoints a methodology requirements, project and other reviews, scheduled presentations, and specific documents the project must create. Add any missing work you discover to the WBS and scope baseline.

Describe Activities

Convert the lowest-level WBS entries into project activities that can be estimated a scheduled, and tracked. Check that each represents a discrete, separate piece of work that has a starting and a stopping point. For each piece of work, capture and document any assumptions.

Describe each lowest-level work package concisely in terms of the work to be done and the task deliverable (examples: install power, edit user documentation).

These verb-noun descriptions ensure clarity and make planning and tracking easier.

Identify one or more specific deliverables for each lowest-level activity. For each deliverable, specify the acceptance or test criteria. Be able to describe any requirements relating to standards, performance, or specific quality level.

If no one can clearly define the deliverable for an activity, the work may be unnecessary; consider deleting it.

Assign Owners

Seek capable, motivated owners for each lowest-level activity. Staff all work possible using willing volunteers, and remember that the project leader remains responsible for all tasks without an owner.

For each activity, assign one and only one owner, delegating responsibility for the work. Owners will be responsible for planning, estimating, monitoring a and reporting on the activity, but they will not necessarily do all the work alone. In some cases, owners will lead a team doing the work, or even serve as a liaison for outsourced tasks. For each activity, identify all needed skills, staff, and any other resources.

Identify Milestones

In addition to project activities, which consume time and effort, project schedules also have milestones—events used to synchronize project work and mark significant project transitions that have no duration. Uses for milestones include:
• Project start
• Project end
• Completion of related parallel activities
• Phase gates or life cycle stage transitions
• Significant decisions, approvals, or events
• Interfaces among multiple dependent projects
• Other external activity dependencies and deliverables

List all project milestones.

Document Activities

Document all activities and milestones in a database, software tool for project management, or some other appropriate format. Include activity names, owners, assumptions, deliverable descriptions, and other important information. The activity list (often part of a WBS Dictionary) serves as the foundation for project planning, risk analysis, execution, and control. Provide all activity owners a summary of their work.

Use activity definitions as a foundation for many other planning processes a including activity duration estimating, activity resource estimating, activity sequencing, schedule development, cost estimating, risk identification a required skills analysis, and responsibility analysis.

As the project planning and execution proceeds, keep activity information current. Periodically update the activity list to add work identified during the project.