Talk:work breakdown structure

Not only does the definition not make sense to me, but I also think this looks like either a breakdown of the structure of work, or a structure for the breakdown of work, both of which are SOP. --Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 00:20, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, I see what you mean. The vocabulary of linguists and computerists (eg. free morpheme:, preferences:) has curious subtleties that the jargon of management does not. DCDuring TALK 01:01, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Doesn't seem to have been written by a native English-speaker. Borderline improvable, but I would not mind it being deleted. SemperBlotto (talk) 07:38, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Ha, it was written by DCDuring who's known to quite like to use difficult words when simple words will do, but usually only in the Wiktionary: namespace! Mglovesfun (talk) 10:28, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Deleted as SoP. bd2412 T 17:50, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Betraying thereby a bias against and contempt for fields of endeavor not popular with our kind of people. See . DCDuring TALK 19:35, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I did nothing more than recite the outcome of the discussion. A nomination to delete, a vote weighing more toward deletion, and no clear suggestion that the entry should be kept. Your own response to the proposal for deletion, "Yes, I see what you mean", could be taken as an agreement with the nomination for deletion. Bring back the entry if you can do so in a way that makes it clear that this phrase is more than the sum of its parts. Cheers! bd2412 T 21:05, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I know. It was just a general-purpose jeremiad, nothing personal. DCDuring TALK 22:56, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

I don't know what the original entry said as it is now deleted (perhaps someone can enlighten me) but this is a set phrase in project management. It is the division of a project into work packages with defined deliverables and the allocation of said packages to resources, often documented in the form of a tree chart. It is hardly going to occur in normal speech outside of that technical meaning and it cannot easily be deduced from SoP. Spinning Spark  19:00, 5 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Here's the definition as removed:
 * "# A hierarchically organized specification of all tasks whose completion is required for a project to be considered complete."
 * "it was written by DCDuring who's known to quite like to use difficult words when simple words will do". This is as revised by DAVilla, taking out all the hard words. DCDuring TALK 19:34, 5 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Well I would take issue with that definition in some respects, but I still don't think it is strictly SoP for the reasons stated, and I don't really understand why you agreed to deletion, unless you were put out by your original def being changed. Spinning Spark  22:14, 6 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I neglected the fact that irony doesn't work well in online communications, especially when an ironic reading would challenge the beliefs and self-image of the readers.
 * As I wrote it: "A complete hierarchically organized specification of the tasks whose complete is required to complete a project". Apart from the second complete being an error for completion, I was obviously too tired to notice that my fingers had typed "complete" three times in one defining phrase. has other definition attempts. DCDuring TALK  23:12, 6 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't think we need the "whose completion is required to complete a project" bit. This is not the essence of what the WBS is about and it is pretty much a truism.  The WBS is all about work packages (which is not a synonym for tasks depending on whose book you read), their deliverables, and their owners.  But anyway, the question now is not so much what the best definition is, but rather, now that someone has gone and deleted it, what the way forward should be.  By the way, is all this talk of difficult words just more irony?  The only word that disappeared altogether from your original definition is the word to. Spinning Spark  00:50, 7 July 2013 (UTC)