You can do it with the dash in the car, but you need small hands. Part of the problem is keeping the heater control unit connected to the fascia panel as you try to reinstall everything. They're held together by the same screws that attach the whole works to the dash, and there's several spacers thrown into the mix, just for added excitement.
By the way, if you're replacing the old knobs anyway, it's just as easy to crunch the old ones, and remove the broken pieces. On mine, the spring loaded pin had pretty well fused to the knobs, and no amount of pushing would make it budge. I finally just grabbed a pair of vice grips, and crunched the old knobs into tiny pieces. After that, they pretty much removed themselves.