The Lost Art of Knowing What You’re Actually Building

Avatar photoByAdil

In 1965, NASA used a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) to land humans on the moon. Not Gantt charts. Not Jira. A simple tree of deliverables: “Command Module,” “Lunar Ascent Engine,” “Reentry Heat Shield.” Each leaf was a tangible output—nothing vague, nothing optional.

Fast-forward to 2026. Search “Work Breakdown Structure” and you’ll get Asana, Wrike, or ClickUp—with $20/month/user plans, onboarding flows, and 50 features you’ll never use. All to solve a problem that should take five minutes: What are we actually building?

Somewhere along the way, we forgot that scoping isn’t bureaucracy—it’s precision engineering for your project. And it’s not just for PMOs. It’s for:

  • The solo dev scoping a weekend SaaS idea
  • The data scientist defining what “model ready for production” really means
  • The freelancer avoiding scope creep on client work

Most “productivity” tools fail here because they track tasks, not outcomes. “Write API” is an activity. “Authenticated user API with rate limiting” is a deliverable. Only the latter can be validated, shared, or signed off on.

That’s why I built SimpleWBS.com:

  • Free, no sign-up, works in-browser
  • Pure hierarchical breakdown
  • Export as a scoping contract (for clients, teammates, or your future self)

Think of it as personal scope hygiene. Before you open your IDE, ask: “What must exist for this to be done?” Then sketch it. If you can’t break it into concrete pieces, you’re not ready to build.

I’ve used it to:

  • Scope a client data migration (caught missing validation step)
  • Plan a side-project launch (realized I needed terms of service)
  • Break down a machine learning pipeline (separated training infra from inference API)

It’s not about process. It’s about not wasting your most precious resource: your time.

Try it next time you start something new: https://simplewbs.com

And if you do—reply with your WBS. I’d love to see how builders like you define “done.”

Similar Posts