Disaster Recovery Setup Work Breakdown Structure
This is a practical guide to building a work breakdown structure for a disaster recovery setup project — a deliverable-oriented decomposition of the whole scope into manageable work packages, adapted to the realities of establishing backup and disaster-recovery capability.
What a Work Breakdown Structure is
A work breakdown structure is a deliverable-oriented decomposition of the whole scope into manageable work packages. For the full concept and how it works in general, see Work Breakdown Structure. On a disaster recovery setup project it plays the same role, tuned to this kind of work.
Why it matters for a Disaster Recovery Setup project
Disaster Recovery Setup projects live or die on establishing backup and disaster-recovery capability. A well-built work breakdown structure gives the team a shared, explicit reference for exactly that — reducing ambiguity, aligning stakeholders, and making problems visible early enough to act. Skipping it, or doing it generically, is how disaster recovery setup projects drift into avoidable delay and cost.
What to include
- Top-level deliverables
- Sub-deliverables
- Work packages (8–80 hours)
- WBS numbering
- WBS dictionary entries
Disaster Recovery Setup-specific considerations
Tailor the work breakdown structure to the risks that most often derail disaster recovery setup projects:
- Recovery-time objectives
- Untested failover
- Ongoing maintenance
Example
On a real disaster recovery setup project, the work breakdown structure would be shaped by establishing backup and disaster-recovery capability. In particular, it should explicitly account for the project’s biggest risks — recovery-time objectives, untested failover, ongoing maintenance — rather than treating them as afterthoughts.