Comparison of WBS and Gantt Chart

Tool

WBS-Work Breakdown Structure

Gantt Chart

Strengths

• Foundation for planning and scheduling

• Divide project into smaller manageable workpieces

• Easier to estimate costs

• Ensure all aspects of process gets clearly defined

• Easier to calculate necessary resources

• Promote brainstorming and team cohesion (Haughey, 2014 & Jacowski, 2016)

• Ideal to display visual information of a project

• Shows a clear track of dependencies and sequence of a project

• Easy to create with the necessary software

• Perfect for scheduling of activities and tasks

• Quick to display scheduling over various time frames e.g. daily, weekly, monthly, etc.

• Gives a quick snapshot of the current situation of a project at any stage

• If continually updated, it depicts slowdowns and aids in rescheduling

Limitations

• Cannot quickly display scheduling over different time frames

• Does not show activities and tasks (Haughey, 2014)

• Not suitable to break down a project into manageable workpieces

• Can easily be misused or misinterpreted

• Not much use if they are not updated continually (Russel, 2016)