Application of Project Management in Union Credit Program - Essay Example

Application of Project Management in Union Credit Program Executive Summary: The case of the Union Credit Programme revealed a situation in which incorrect/ineffective levels of project management failed to address the core issues that were present for the organization. Whereas other government programs had achieved a degree of success, based primarily upon the level of project management that they engendered, this particular program turned out to be nothing short of a colossal disaster; due in large part to the fact that an incorrect level of oversight, poor project planning, poor project governance, and overall misunderstanding of how the finished product should work and integrate with the prior iterations was affected. Worse still, once the project began to show signs of problems, the stakeholders were unable to realize that the fundamental issue that they faced was one that was concentric upon project management and not the actual scope of the coding or other IT concerns that a project of this size entailed. Sadly, the case of Union Credit Program is one that has a high degree of relevance with respect to the way in which many projects or organized and develop. Utilizing this case as a fundamental mechanism of understanding, the researcher can point to the fact that many elements of project management failed. Likewise, delineating these failures and seeking to provide a discussion with respect to how these failures might have been averted, and could potentially be averted by firms/organizations in the future, will serve as the crux upon which the following analysis will rest. Introduction: Project management and the need for an increase in efficiency and utility, as a function of promoting the success of its particular program or approach, is something that all firms, organizations, and branches of government must seek to employ. Ultimately, effective project management is something that is unlikely to ever be completely effective or correct in its implementation; as a function of this, the need for review, analysis, and integration of lessons learned is an appropriate mechanism through which stakeholders can seek to promote the interests of their respective organization/firm in the future (Ali & Kidd, 2014). Within such an understanding, this particular analysis will engage a discussion with regards to the case of the Universal Credit Programme and the means through which project planning and project governance could have been utilized to a more effective degree; potentially creating a situation in which the losses and failures of the program would not have been evidenced to the degree in which they were. Project Background: As with any form of civic engagement and government responsibility, the particular issue at hand is contingent upon the degree and extent to which the government of the United Kingdom could secret to reduce the overall level of personnel, time, and funding that were utilized as a means of addressing key social needs. Ultimately, the Union Credit Programme was designed as a means of placing all of the state’s welfare programs under a central umbrella. This was of course a brilliant idea in theory as it provided a means of reducing the overall cost of administration through and economies of scale approach (Arnold & Javernick-Will, 2014). However, soon after engaging the program and seeking to place incremental change as the approach that would be taken, core and fundamental weaknesses to this particular approach came to be evidenced. As the project soon exhibited failures in a prior stage of development and/or planning created something of a cascade effect; effectively reducing any potential benefits that the incremental change approach could have affected. More worrisome still, project leaders and personnel who were responsible for implementing these changes, even though some of them voice their concerns and raised the issue, found themselves fighting an uphill battle with regards to going back and repairing the issues that were causing the problems further along in the production process (Brown, 2008). As has been discussed briefly within the introduction, the relevance that all of this has with respect to theory an approach is contingent upon the fact that any project, regardless of scope or size, runs the risk of experiencing the same result if they were to engage in a similar means of project management as was engaged in this particular example. Discussion: Project Planning and Project Governance As has been limited to previously, the core and fundamental issues that this particular analysis will discuss, with respect to project management, are concentric upon project planning and project governance. Through such a discussion, it will be the hope of this author that the reader can come to a more informed and realistic understanding of the methodology through which these two factors could have fundamentally shifted the end result that was realized after the horrendous implementation of the Union Credit Programme. Firstly, the project planning that was involved with regards to this specific program was fundamentally flawed. The underlying reason for this has to do with the fact that the intention and goals of this project were not understood, analyzed, or considered for their ultimate requirements (Mesly et al., 2014). As has previously been noted, the ultimate intention of this particular program was to serve as an of relevant program through which the distribution of benefits for many other welfare programs could take place; reducing the requirements of personnel, finance, and time (Chou & Yang, J 2012). As a function of such a fundamental requirements, project management should have engaged with an effective level of project planning that consider the inherent needs and the means through which these disparate goals could be accomplished. Unfortunately, the approach that was chosen was one which was mainly concentric upon the agile systems development approach. Within this agile systems development approach, the team members determined that dynamic systems development method (phased implementation) was a means through which the overall utility of the entire surface could be maximized. Yet, taking this requirement and analyzing it reveals a fundamental failure (Xu et al., 2014). By utilizing a phased implementation schedule, the methodology through which the program could consider all of the differential components, calculate their respective worth, and make algorithmic judgments based upon the information that other programs entailed was severely restricted (Canonico et al., 2013). What the project management team failed to realize was the fact that they had agreed upon a means of development that effectively allowed for multiple different programs to be created in a vacuum and died forced from each other (Byers, 2011). Due to the intrinsic nature of this particular program and the means through which it was to engage with ancillary and additional information, such an approach was carried to experience severe issues immediately. Another core issue that must be discussed is with regards to project governance. Whereas it is true that the project planning phase, which was previously analyzed, was a fundamental component that insured there would be issues and concerns, the failure of project governance was the final element that doomed the implementation of the system. The ability and lack of desire to realize the shortcomings that the system posed created a situation in which stakeholders and leaders sought to ignore these warning signs rather than work to ameliorate them. Ultimately, the poor governance of the project is due in part to poor project planning (Thamhain, 2013). This is indicative of an incremental systems approach in which even the most effective project management team would be clueless with regards to the overall shortcomings until such a time as the finished project came to be demonstrated; clearly denoting the fact that fundamental breakdowns in relevance and scope had been exhibited since the very beginning (Wells, 2012). Furthermore, the case notes the following quote, “For a start, there was the difficulty of managing the claimant’s tax payer reference to their national insurance number and also the complication of housing benefit calculations (Cahyono & Yanki, 2012: 15). And what if someone else in the household claims disability allowance?”. From this brief quote, the reader can come to the rapid realization of the fact that a litany of tangentially related information, databases, and core concerns were exhibited, yet ignored, from the very beginning of the project (Qu & Cheung, 2013). This wilful ignorance denotes a fundamental level of project governance failure. Naturally, the corresponding issue of effective project planning might have potentially reduced the project government oversights that have thus far been denoted. However, notwithstanding this excuse, the reader should also come to the realization of the fact that oversight functions, responsibilities, and review were not performed on a regular basis; otherwise, the stakeholders would have been made keenly aware of the project breakdowns as they were taking place (Fisher, 2011). Even though it would have been extraordinarily difficult to ameliorate these issues as the project was continuing, in implementation phases, doing so would have reduced a great deal of strain further along in the process; not to mention the waste of millions of pounds. Conclusions and Recommendations: Perhaps the most important recommendation that could be made is with regards to the fact that the agile systems development approach, one that integrated the dynamic systems development method or phased implementation, was inherently the wrong choice of project management and development for the needs at hand (Austin et al., 2013). A far more reasonable approach would have been to sit down and leverage project management/planning as a means of seeking to promote the actual utility and efficiency, as well as the cost savings, of this program in its entirety. Moreover, a degree of strong project governance should also have been exhibited as a means of putting the project back on track once it was clear that it was not going to be able to meet the expectations that had been laid out. As a result of these failures, the project management team soon found themselves in a deluge of revisions and changes that they could ill afford or implement according to the schedule that they had created for themselves (Di Tullio & Staples, 2013). As a means of counteracting this painful reality, it would be the recommendation of this author that any future projects should be engaged with the appropriate mechanisms to allow sufficient time for changes/revisions for non-working aspects of the project. Further, if the project is one that requires a highly integrative approach, using an incremental and divorced level of development is inherently absurd. Even though it will take a great deal more time to complete thoroughly, this approach is the only one that will allow for team members/stakeholders to be aware of the tangential needs that other sections will require to develop their own finished product. Consequently, this will allow for the different divisions to assist one another in implementing the final project; rather than acting as divorced and dis-embodied components of the same entity. Bibliography Ali, U., & Kidd, C. 2014, 'Barriers to effective configuration management application in a project context: An empirical investigation',International Journal Of Project Management, 32, 3, pp. 508-518, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 3 March 2014. Arnold, P., & Javernick-Will, A. 2013, 'Projectwide Access: Key to Effective Implementation of Construction Project Management Software Systems', Journal Of Construction Engineering & Management, 139, 5, pp. 510-518, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 3 March 2014. Austin, C., Browne, W., Haas, B., Kenyatta, E., & Zulueta, S. 2013, 'Application of Project Management in Higher Education', Journal Of Economic Development, Management, IT, Finance & Marketing, 5, 2, pp. 75-99, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 3 March 2014. Brown, C. 2008, 'A comprehensive organisational model for the effective management of project management', South African Journal Of Business Management, 39, 3, pp. 1-10, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 3 March 2014. Byers, C. (2011), 'Is Early Warning Effective for the Improvement of Problem Solving and Project Performance?', Journal Of Management In Engineering, 30, 2, pp. 146-152, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 3 March 2014. Cahyono, A., & Yanki, H. 2012, 'CONFLICT APPROACHES OF EFFECTIVE PROJECT MANAGER IN THE UPSTREAM SECTOR OF INDONESIAN OIL & GAS INDUSTRY', South East Asian Journal Of Management, 6, 2, pp. 65-80, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 3 March 2014. Canonico, P., Söderlund, J., De Nito, E., & Mangia, G. 2013, 'Special issue on organizational mechanisms for effective knowledge creation in projectsGuest editorial', International Journal Of Managing Projects In Business, 6, 2, pp. 223-235, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 3 March 2014. Chou, J., & Yang, J. 2012, 'Project Management Knowledge and Effects on Construction Project Outcomes: An Empirical Study',Project Management Journal, 43, 5, pp. 47-67, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 3 March 2014. Di Tullio, D., & Staples, D. 2013, 'The Governance and Control of Open Source Software Projects', Journal Of Management Information Systems, 30, 3, pp. 49-80, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 3 March 2014. Fisher, E. 2011, 'What practitioners consider to be the skills and behaviours of an effective people project manager', International Journal Of Project Management, 29, 8, pp. 994-1002, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 3 March 2014. Mesly, O., Lévy-Mangin, J., Bourgault, N., & Nabelsi, V. 2014, 'Effective multicultural project management: the role of human interdependence', International Journal Of Managing Projects In Business, 7, 1, pp. 78-102, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 3 March 2014. Qu, Y., & Cheung, S. 2013, 'Experimental evaluation of logrolling as an effective mediating tactic in construction project management',International Journal Of Project Management, 31, 5, pp. 775-790, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 3 March 2014. Thamhain, H. 2013, 'Managing Risks in Complex Projects', Project Management Journal, 44, 2, pp. 20-35, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 3 March 2014. Wells, H. 2012, 'How Effective Are Project Management Methodologies? An Explorative Evaluation of Their Benefits in Practice',Project Management Journal, 43, 6, pp. 43-58, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 3 March 2014. Xu, Z., Ming, X., Song, W., He, L., & Li, M. 2014, 'Collaborative Project Management: A Systemic Approach to Heavy Equipment Manufacturing Project Management', Systemic Practice & Action Research, 27, 2, pp. 141-164, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 3 March 2014. Read More