Ethics, and Professionalization of Project Management

 

The end of the year is a generous time when we all expect to give and receive, to go over the year’s achievements and to prepare for the New Year.

For project managers, and for all professionals involved in management of projects, programs and portfolios, the month of December 2016 brought a historical and ground breaking development. The U.S. President Barack Obama signed bill S.1550, the Program Management Improvement and Accountability Act of 2015 (PMIAA).

With this law in place, the CxO class (CEOs, CIOs and CFOs) in the agencies of the U.S. federal government are now directed to use and apply project and program standards in their work. This is a major shift in management practices, with direct social and economic impact, not only in the United States but also around the world.

The Project Management Institute (PMI) has been a strong advocate for the professionalization and recognition of project and program management as an occupation. This cause has been pursued since the late 1960s, and the support now offered by the U.S. federal government is the crowning achievement of over five decades of professional advocacy. The message is clear not only for the professionals in private and public sector in the United States: Project management brings professionalism, accountability, efficiency and ultimately success to any management agenda. Our hope is that the impact and implications will serve as the basis for similar government initiatives around the world.

Let’s examine this monumental achievement, which supports the process of professionalization of project and program management, and see how ethics comes into play.

PMI and others have exerted intense and prolonged efforts to move toward the professionalization of project and program management. These efforts have combined creation of standards, education in project and program management, defining the right skill sets and suggesting, via thought leadership, ways to improve business practices. But these practices must go hand in hand with ethics and high integrity, as they are the nexus of business and strategy for any value-based professional activity.

Sharing the responsibility for benefits in the field of professional project, program and portfolio management requires ethics, as well as “values” in the form of general ethical principles on how professionals should treat the people they work with and what sorts of actions are regarded as right or wrong.

 With the PMIAA, the CxO class is called upon to engage their businesses in  ethical practices in a desire to do the right thing, and convince stakeholders of  their capability of doing the right thing, thus achieving the right thing!

 The ability to “do the right thing” should be enabled internationally with the    appropriate regulatory support and legislation being enacted by additional    governments world-wide.

We applaud the efforts and support of the United States federal government, and hope more jurisdictions will follow their lead.