ITPEC FE Morning April 2018 Question 52

Organizational Breakdown Structure (OBS) — the hierarchy of the project organization, showing which organizational unit performs which project activities.

The OBS arranges the units of the project organization (departments, teams, groups) as a hierarchy and attaches to each unit the activities or work packages it will perform, so reading it for one unit shows everything that unit is responsible for. The PMBOK Guide glossary defines it in the words of the question: "a hierarchical representation of the project organization, which illustrates the relationship between project activities and the organizational units that will perform those activities."

Answer (a)

Why not others:

• •(b) Product Breakdown Structure — a hierarchy of the products and deliverables the project produces; it does not show who performs the work
• •(c) Responsibility Assignment Matrix — a grid that crosses work packages with individual team members or roles and their type of responsibility (for example RACI); it is a matrix of people, not a structure of organizational units
• •(d) Work Breakdown Structure — a hierarchical decomposition of the total scope of work into work packages; it shows what must be done, not which unit does it

Key rule: The WBS breaks down the work, the PBS the deliverables and the OBS the organization together with its activities, while the RAM crosses work packages with people.

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