TOPIC: Activity list vs work packages

I just watched section 6.2, Define Activities, on the PMP Prepcast. After viewing it, I could not reconcile the difference between this section and section 5.4, Create WBS. What is the difference between work packages (5.4) and the activity list (6.2)? To me, it seems that both are the same. What are the differences between deliverables and activities? Can someone give a concrete example of both? It's probably simple but I'm confused!

Hi Gary,

Let's start with deliverables. Deliverables basically are everything that the project creates, including project management documentation.
Creating the WBS is all about taking deliverables and coming up with work packages that will create them.

So for instance, you take a major project deliverable such as "Artwork and Packaging". Then using the tool and technique of "Decomposition", you break down that deliverable into work packages such as "create scenery", "inspect boxes", "sketch characters" etc. These bunch of work packages all add up to create that major deliverable of "Artwork and Packaging".

The activity list is a list of everything that needs to be done to complete your project. This list is lower-level than the WBS. It’s all the activities that must be accomplished to deliver the work packages.

So each work package listed above (create scenery, inspect boxes etc.) will have an activity list associated with it which defines all the activities needed to be carried out to create that work package.

So in terms of hierarchy you can see it as Deliverables --breakdown into --> work packages --created by --> activities in the activity list.

Hope this helps.