Work Breakdown Structure Example: Event and Website WBS

A work breakdown structure (WBS) splits a project into deliverables, then splits each deliverable into work packages small enough to estimate, assign and track. A company summer party, for example, breaks into venue, food and drink, program, guests, event day and wrap-up, and each of those breaks into packages of roughly 8 to 80 hours of work.

Below are two full WBS examples with hours, the 8/80 rule for sizing packages, and the steps to turn a finished WBS into the phases and tasks of a Gantt chart.

What a Work Breakdown Structure Includes

A WBS is an outline, not a schedule: it answers “what has to be delivered?” before anyone asks “when?” Most small projects need three levels:

• Level 1, the project: the whole outcome, such as “Company summer party.”
• Level 2, deliverables: the major pieces of that outcome, such as Venue or Guests.
• Level 3, work packages: the smallest units you estimate and assign, such as “Invitations and RSVP tracking.”

Each item gets a code that shows where it sits: 1 is the project, 1.4 the fourth deliverable, and 1.4.1 the first package under it. Codes make it easy to sort and roll up hours in a spreadsheet.

Two rules keep a WBS honest. The 100% rule says the children of any item must add up to all of its work, with nothing missing and nothing extra. And no overlap: a piece of work lives in exactly one package, so it is estimated and paid for once.

Tasks and subtasks fit underneath. A work package becomes one task on your task list. The small steps inside it, like “email three caterers” or “ask about vegan options,” are subtasks, and they belong in a checklist or the task description rather than in the WBS.

How to Create a WBS in Six Steps

1. Write the project outcome in one line. “A summer party for 120 employees on a Saturday in June” is specific enough to test against.
2. List the deliverables. Ask what someone could point at when the project is finished. Aim for four to eight.
3. Break each deliverable into work packages. Keep going until each package has one owner and a result you can check.
4. Estimate the effort in hours. Effort is the total working time, whoever does it, not the number of days on the calendar.
5. Test each package against the 8/80 rule. Merge tiny packages and split oversized ones (see below).
6. Check the 100% rule. Read each deliverable and ask, “If every package under it is done, is this deliverable done?” If not, a package is missing.

Work Breakdown Structure Example 1: A Company Summer Party

An office manager is running a Saturday party for 120 employees with four volunteers. Deliverable rows show the total of their packages.

WBS code	Deliverable or work package	Effort (hours)
1	Company summer party	186
1.1	Venue	18
1.1.1	Shortlist and visit venues	10
1.1.2	Book venue, confirm floor plan and insurance	8
1.2	Food and drink	28
1.2.1	Choose caterer and menu	12
1.2.2	Collect dietary needs and final numbers	8
1.2.3	Bar and drinks plan	8
1.3	Program	34
1.3.1	Run of show and speeches	10
1.3.2	Games and activities	16
1.3.3	Music and sound booking	8
1.4	Guests	20
1.4.1	Invitations and RSVP tracking	12
1.4.2	Travel, parking and accessibility info	8
1.5	Event day	76
1.5.1	Setup, decor and signage	24
1.5.2	Event day staffing (5 people)	40
1.5.3	Teardown and returns	12
1.6	Wrap-up	10
1.6.1	Pay suppliers, feedback survey and notes	10

Notice that 1.5.2 is 40 hours of effort packed into a single day: five people working eight hours each. That is why the WBS counts effort, not duration. For turning this kind of list into a dated countdown, our event planning timeline works backward from the event date.

Work Breakdown Structure Example 2: A Small Business Website

A three-person studio (Lena designs, Ada writes, Marco builds) is making an eight-page website for a local business.

WBS code	Deliverable or work package	Effort (hours)
1	Small business website	224
1.1	Discovery	18
1.1.1	Kickoff and requirements	8
1.1.2	Sitemap and content plan	10
1.2	Design	48
1.2.1	Wireframes	16
1.2.2	Visual design	24
1.2.3	Design revisions (one round)	8
1.3	Content	42
1.3.1	Copywriting (8 pages)	30
1.3.2	Photos and graphics	12
1.4	Development	88
1.4.1	Theme and page templates	40
1.4.2	Build pages and enter content	32
1.4.3	Contact form, booking and analytics	16
1.5	Testing and launch	28
1.5.1	Browser, mobile and speed testing	12
1.5.2	Launch and domain switch	8
1.5.3	Client training and handover notes	8

The hours column is also the start of a price. Multiply each package by a rate and you have the labor part of a bottom-up estimate, which our guide on how to estimate project costs walks through line by line.

The 8/80 Rule for Work Packages

The 8/80 rule is a sizing check: a work package should take at least 8 hours and no more than 80 hours of effort. Below 8 hours, you spend more time tracking the item than doing it. Above 80 hours, the package is too big to estimate well, and a slip can hide for two weeks before anyone notices.

Both examples above pass, but their first drafts did not:

Draft package	Hours	8/80 result	Fix
Send save-the-date email	1	Too small	Folded into 1.4.1 Invitations and RSVP tracking
Order name badges	2	Too small	Folded into 1.5.1 Setup, decor and signage
Build the website	88	Too big	Split into 1.4.1, 1.4.2 and 1.4.3 (40, 32 and 16 hours)

Treat 8/80 as a rule of thumb, not a law. A related check says no package should run longer than one reporting period, so if you review progress every Friday, a package should finish within a week or two. On a small solo project, scale it down: keep packages between half a day and a week.

How a WBS Becomes Gantt Phases and Tasks

The finished WBS maps almost directly onto a Gantt chart:

1. Level 2 deliverables become phases. Discovery, Design, Content, Development, and Testing and launch.
2. Work packages become tasks, each with one owner.
3. Hours become working days. Divide effort by the focused hours the owner gives the project each day, and round up. Here we assume 6 hours a day.
4. Dependencies set start dates. Each task starts the working day after the task it waits for.
5. Holidays push dates out. This schedule starts Monday, November 2, 2026, with November 26 and 27 off for Thanksgiving.

Phase	Task	Owner	Hours	Days	Start	Due
Discovery	Kickoff and requirements	Lena	8	2	Mon, Nov 2	Tue, Nov 3
Discovery	Sitemap and content plan	Lena	10	2	Wed, Nov 4	Thu, Nov 5
Design	Wireframes	Lena	16	3	Fri, Nov 6	Tue, Nov 10
Design	Visual design	Lena	24	4	Wed, Nov 11	Mon, Nov 16
Design	Design revisions	Lena	8	2	Tue, Nov 17	Wed, Nov 18
Content	Copywriting	Ada	30	5	Fri, Nov 6	Thu, Nov 12
Content	Photos and graphics	Ada	12	2	Fri, Nov 13	Mon, Nov 16
Development	Theme and page templates	Marco	40	7	Thu, Nov 19	Tue, Dec 1
Development	Build pages and enter content	Marco	32	6	Wed, Dec 2	Wed, Dec 9
Development	Contact form, booking and analytics	Marco	16	3	Thu, Dec 10	Mon, Dec 14
Testing and launch	Browser, mobile and speed testing	Lena	12	2	Tue, Dec 15	Wed, Dec 16
Testing and launch	Launch and domain switch	Marco	8	2	Thu, Dec 17	Fri, Dec 18
Testing and launch	Client training and handover	Lena	8	2	Mon, Dec 21	Tue, Dec 22

Content runs alongside Design because Ada only needs the sitemap to start writing. The build waits for both the theme and the photos, and Thanksgiving stretches the theme work into December. The 224 hours become 35 working days.

The math is the same in Google Sheets and Excel. With hours in E2, days in F2, start in G2, due in H2 and holidays on a sheet named Holidays:

• Days: =ROUNDUP(E2/6, 0)
• Due date: =WORKDAY(G2, F2-1, Holidays!$A$2:$A$20)
• Start after one task (its due date in H3): =WORKDAY(H3, 1, Holidays!$A$2:$A$20)
• Start after two tasks (due dates in H5 and H8): =WORKDAY(MAX(H5, H8), 1, Holidays!$A$2:$A$20)

The first start date must itself be a working day. Our NETWORKDAYS guide covers custom weekends and holiday lists. In our Gantt chart template, you name your phases on the setup tab and pick a phase on each task, so the chart groups the bars under your level 2 deliverables. To draw the chart yourself, follow how to make a Gantt chart in Google Sheets.

A Simple WBS Template in Google Sheets or Excel

You only need four columns: A: WBS code, B: Name, C: Owner, D: Hours (filled in on work packages only).

Format column A as text before typing, or 1.10 turns into the number 1.1. In Google Sheets, use Format > Number > Plain text. In Excel, choose Text in the Home tab’s number format box, or type an apostrophe first (’1.10). Then add three formulas, identical in both apps:

• Level in E2: =LEN(A2)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(A2,".",""))+1
• Rolled-up hours in F2: =IF(D2<>"", D2, SUMIF(A:A, A2&".*", D:D)), which sums every row whose code starts with this one, so 1.4 collects 1.4.1 to 1.4.3.
• 8/80 check in G2: =IF(D2="", "", IF(D2<8, "Merge", IF(D2>80, "Split", "OK")))

Filter column G for Merge and Split before you date anything. Once every package reads OK, read the list aloud to someone who will do the work: a missing package is far cheaper to find now than in week five.