Project Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words - 4

Project Management - Essay Example The universal credit has brought together a variety of working-age benefits and put them into a single payment. The Universal credit project was aimed at encouraging the individuals on benefits to initiate paid work or to have overtime hours to work by ensuring that the job is paying. The Universal credit project also helped bring in a smoothened transition when getting into work and at the time of retiring. The Universal Credit system has also brought about a simplification in its operation with respect to the previous system in that it has become easy for people to comprehend its working and it is simpler and less expensive to dispense (Department for Work & Pensions 2013b). The welfare system also aimed to significantly reduce the number of individuals who are under poverty and they are still working. It also aimed to reduce chances of errors and fraud that have been witnessed in the current system. This project had good intentions and it was seen as the best and efficient way at the time to deal with the welfare situation and diminish poverty. This project on being run has come across several setbacks that have seen it receive criticism from various corners. The media especially depicted negative publicity of the Universal Credit project citing poor management and lack of transparency within the system. Management of the Universal Credit project has witnessed various changes within the management running the system severally. This report hopes to review how to effectively manage a project and with the reference of the Universal Credit project I will cite ways in which such a project would effectively have been managed in a bid to eliminate the problems in management that the project faced when it was set to run. Background Many individuals on benefits are of the thought that the financial threats of moving into work are extremely high. Some people have actually viewed the gains from the work they do, especially working during part time, to be very little an d such gains are easily neutralized by other expenses that increase day in day out such as the fee involved in transportation. The government of United Kingdom considered and viewed the current program to be too complicated and it lacks rewards and incentives that will encourage and boost the morale of individuals on benefits to initiate paid work or to have overtime hours to work. The government hence set out to come up with a system that would do this and that was fairer and was cheap to afford in a bid to diminish joblessness, welfare dependency and poverty and to decrease the degree of error and fraud (Department for Work & Pensions 2013b). The United Kingdom government hence came up with a welfare system that would do all this and it was what we now know as the Universal credit. The welfare program was aimed at ensuring that a large number of people get into jobs and those in jobs to successively progress in them. Project initiation This is the most crucial stage of any project . It is the first process in the project development lifecycle. Project initiation is the major determiner of whether the project will turn out to be a success and hence keenness and efficiency should be observed in this process. Most projects that fail during deployment have