In my company, the Work Breakdown structure more closely resembles option 2. I have seen various degrees of success with this. I think one of the problems I see occur is that the people providing input into the work breakdown structur are not the people actually performing the tasks. Often the higher ups don’t necessarily know all the ins and outs of how a project task might be run or how to properly break it down. Also by separating by departments it can be difficult to identify interdependence of tasks. For example, one person might be resposible for a change assessment, but Regulatory would need to provide input into that assessment. The regulatory input could take several weeks because they need to get input from associates around the world. A manager in R&D who is usually responsible for changes may not understand why a task takes so long.