Define Activities

Identifies and documents the specific activities needed to produce each work package, producing the activity list, attributes, and milestones. It bridges the WBS to a workable schedule.

Process Group Planning Knowledge Area Project Schedule Management

Define Activities breaks the WBS work packages into the individual activities that must be performed to produce them. It produces the activity list, activity attributes, and the milestone list — the building blocks the rest of schedule planning sequences, estimates, and assembles.

Define Activities: key inputs and outputs — The key inputs feeding Define Activities and the deliverables it produces — full ITTOs are listed below.

On projects using rolling wave planning, near-term work is decomposed in detail while later work stays at a higher level until it is closer. Defining activities (the work) separately from deliverables (the WBS) keeps the schedule actionable.

Common pitfalls. Confusing activities with deliverables; missing activities that later appear as surprise work; and decomposing far-future work in detail that will only change.

Inputs, Tools & Techniques, and Outputs

Inputs

Project management plan
Enterprise environmental factors
Organizational process assets

Tools & Techniques

Expert judgment
Decomposition
Rolling wave planning
Meetings

Outputs

Activity list
Activity attributes
Milestone list
Change requests
Project management plan updates