Organizational Breakdown Structure (OBS)

The Organizational Breakdown Structure (OBS) defines how people within a company are organized and what rights and access they have within projects. For example, a company that builds ships may have different facilities, with different staff at each facility. Yet certain functions such as the executive team or IT support may span the different facilities. The OBS reflects the chain of command within the company. It can often mirror the EPS, but the two may also diverge. The specific OBS elements may be a mix of specifically named people, business units, departments, and specialties. The OBS and EPS are interconnected such that the OBS can be used to apply security roles and access all projects below specific EPS elements.

The OBS should be considered as a security element, and the use of specific people and names in the OBS should be avoided. Simply look at each EPS element and choose which group should have access to each node. The list of access will guide your design of OBS.

The OBS assignment shows up on each EPS, project, and WBS in a field called Responsible Manager that indicates who has access to this project. Assigning OBS to the entities will be illustrated in the last section of this chapter.

To manage OBS in the web client, click on Administer | User Access. This will bring up a screen as shown in the following screenshot:

The management of OBS in the web client is very similar to management in the Professional Client.

In Professional, choose Enterprise | OBS… to bring up the OBS management screen.

The main screen shows the OBS elements and the users who are assigned to each element. The OBS nodes can be moved by selecting a node, and pressing the arrow keys on the right-hand side of the main screen.

There are three tabs at the bottom of the OBS screen:

General displays the OBS Name and Description for the selected responsible manager (OBS element). The description is a rich-text description of the OBS element.

The Users tab shows which users are assigned to the OBS node. When users are assigned, they are also assigned a specific Project Security profile which determines their access within the EPS, Project, or WBS element associated with the OBS node. We will discuss project security roles in Chapter 4, Creating a New Project and Work sBreakdown Structure.

Responsibility is where users are assigned to specific elements in P6. An OBS element (and hence its users) may be associated with an EPS node. In that case the security level is passed down to all projects within that EPS node. An OBS can be associated with a specific project, or even with WBS elements within a project. The OBS assignments together with your security profile can create Read Only or Read and Write access privileges.

There are three icons of note on this screen, and each represents that the OBS element has responsibility at a different level of the EPS/Project/WBS:

Enterprise Project Structure (EPS) responsibility

Project responsibility

Responsibility for specific WBS elements