Governmental Projects: Are there any ethical considerations?

 

Some people still think that the most important projects are in the private sector, however, governments are the ones that are responsible for creating and establishing the society we want to live in.

Saying that questions emerge:

• Why are government projects failing?
• Why do we still have corruption in the planning and execution of these kinds of projects?
• Is it a leadership problem?
• Or is it because there are good and bad leaders, where bad leaders are in the power?

From a human perspective, people are just people, with light and dark sides.

Leaders are exposed to take decisions at all times in their projects, they should decide what should be right or wrong with public funds, having a direct impact on the expectations of the population living in poverty, that’s why ethics in project management are fundamental while making those decisions.

Al Capone, one of the biggest gangsters in history, even at the end of his days in jail, when people asked him if he was a bad person, he honestly answered: “no, I just wanted to do what is good”.  Several sociologists and psychologists went into deep analysis of his answers, find out that he was not lying, he was truly convinced that he was doing what was good in every situation.

Observers might think that this is part of Al Capone's craziness, but most human beings tend to justify their actions to the good intentions laying behind those actions.

That is why, especially in governmental projects, leaders can’t just rely on their own set of criteria; rather they must have clear and well define metrics and transparency during project execution.

Those metrics must be shown to the ones benefiting from the results of the projects as well.

Perhaps it’s not too common having metrics to reinforce ethical behaviors, however, “taking the right decision in a project” is subject to be divided into several parts, measurable in schedules and sprints.

Communities have the right to see how the projects are managed because they are the ones paying taxes, accordingly, metrics are powerful tools to emphasize public ethical behavior in any government.

PMI has a framework to address ethics decisions that apply as well for any project in government, in any approach and country, you can find it in the following link: https://www.pmi.org/-/media/pmi/documents/public/pdf/ethics/ethical-decision-making-framework.pdf