WBS or Work Breakdown Structure is a hierarchical decomposition of the total scope of work to be carried out by a team to accomplish the project objectives. Project objectives as linked and aligned with product objectives.
Usually entire scope is broken down into smaller elements. This process is called decomposition. The then created elements are further broken down into still smaller elements. The decomposition is done until a level is attained where the work activity an be easily manage and looked upon. The smallest element of a WBS is called work package. For work package, cost and duration can be easily managed. Work package is usually created of 80man hours. It’s not a mandate but experts say that any activity an be easily managed and controlled if it is of 80 man hours.
Work package in Agile Scrums
When we say 80 man hours, it translates to 10 days for a normal 5-day week cycle. Which means that if we have any activity of 2 weeks, it can be easily managed. That’s the reason why sprints are usually of 2 weeks.
Work packages contains activities which are nothing but the user stories of a task in Agile process.