WBS Benefits
Establishing a WBS as soon as possible for the program’s life cycle that details the WBS for each phase provides many program benefits:
segregating work elements into their component parts;
clarifying relationships between the parts, the end product, and the tasks to be completed;
facilitating effective planning and assignment of management and technical responsibilities;
helping track the status of technical efforts, risks, resource allocations, expenditures, and the cost and schedule of technical performance within the appropriate phases, because the work in phases frequently overlaps;
providing a common language for government and contractors to determine an appropriate level of reporting; and
providing a common basis and framework for the EVM system and the schedule, facilitating consistency in understanding program cost and schedule performance. Because the link between the requirements, WBS, the statement of work, and schedule provides specific insights into the relationship between cost, schedule, and performance, all items can be tracked to the same WBS elements.
In summary, a well-developed WBS is essential to the success of all acquisition programs. A comprehensive WBS provides a consistent and visible framework that improves communication; helps in the planning and assignment of management and technical responsibilities; and facilitates tracking, engineering efforts, resource allocations, cost estimates, expenditures, and cost and technical performance. Without a WBS, a program is most likely to encounter problems, as case study 9 illustrates.
The U.S. Census Bureau planned to significantly change the methods and technology it used to count the population with the 2020 Decennial Census, such as offering an option for households to respond to the survey via the Internet. This involved developing and acquiring IT systems and infrastructure to support the collection and processing of Internet response data.
GAO was asked to review the Bureau’s efforts to deliver an Internet response option for the 2020 census. Among other objectives, GAO was asked to assess the reliability of estimated costs and savings for Internet response. To do this, GAO reviewed Bureau studies, cost estimates, project plans, schedules, and other documentation.
GAO concluded that the Internet response option cost estimate was not comprehensive. The Internet response option cost estimate included costs from 2010 to 2020 and provided a subset of assumptions for researching, testing, and deploying an Internet response option. While the estimate was structured around these high-level cost elements, these elements were not defined, and therefore it was not clear whether all costs associated with the Internet response option were included. Bureau officials stated that the estimate was not developed based on a work breakdown structure with defined elements because the 2020 Census program was not mature enough to have such a structure at the time the initial estimate was developed. They stated that the estimate would be updated to reflect the program’s work breakdown structure once the preliminary design decision was made. However, a work breakdown structure should have been initially set up when the program was established and successively updated with more detail over time as more information became known about the program.
GAO recommended that to ensure that the Bureau was better positioned to deliver an Internet response option for the 2020 Decennial Census, the Secretary of Commerce should direct the Under Secretary for Economic Affairs to direct the Director of the Census Bureau to ensure that the estimated costs associated with the Internet response option were updated to reflect significant changes in the program and to fully meet the characteristics of a reliable cost estimate. The Department of Commerce agreed with our recommendation and took steps to implement it. In August 2017, the Census Bureau finalized its Census Enterprise Data Collection and Processing (CEDCAP) Cost Analysis Requirements Description (CARD), which included a basis for estimating the costs associated with the Internet response option. Subsequently, in December 2017, the Bureau finalized its updated 2020 Decennial life cycle cost estimate that included the CEDCAP CARD as an input to the estimate. GAO’s April 2018 analysis of the updated cost estimate found that the Bureau had made significant improvements in its cost estimation process across the four characteristics of a reliable estimate. As a result, the Bureau was better positioned to deliver an Internet response option for the 2020 Decennial Census.