Ethics Bistro

As Project, Program and Portfolio Managers we are looking for ways to increase and validate our personal value to the organizations and clients we serve. One way to achieve this is by acquiring additional professional certifications or credentials that match the milestones in our career with the experience gained, competencies acquired and accomplishments achieved.   

Earning professional designations  not only strengthens the profession, it demonstrates initiative,  is leading by example to others  such as our stakeholders, team members and colleagues the importance of professional development for our professional credibility.    

This makes the stakes high for the hard work, demonstrated competencies and commitment to achieve these credentials.  Obviously, not all of the institutions regulating and offering these professional designations adhere to the same standards. 

The requirements,  credibility and proven  reputation of the varying organizations who award these impact the value of the credential,  The awarding organization and the practitioner  both bear the responsibility for its value  In this article, I will address the ethical role of the organizations that grant professional certificates, the role of the applicants for such certificate, and what is expected from them before and after obtaining it, ethically.

 First, let's start by the role of the organizations that grant the certificates and among these organizations, there are some that have global acceptance and a reputation gained only by following a professional code of conduct and  technical rules and also because of the mutual trust between them and the professional community. We find that successful organizations are mainly based on the four ethical values we have in the PMI's Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct, which are honesty, responsibility, respect and fairness.

These organizations have entrusted themselves with the responsibility of graduating graduates of high efficiency through the issuance of valuable knowledge guides in which a great number of volunteers have participate , working through a specific methodology so that they would be able to issue a certificate of great value in the labor market. These organizations have extended their full respect for the community with honesty, responsibility and fairness. They also have required their members and those who wish to obtain such professional certificates to agree to and adhere to these values of a Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct.  .

Therefore, and generally, they have gained the acceptance of the profession, they are serving. At the same time, there were other organizations that did not adhere nor obligated their members to follow such ethical values, which led to the collapse of these professional societies and therefore did not become credible even if their scientific content was good or acceptable.

Second, as for the applicants to obtain such professional certificates, their lack of commitment to honesty in providing their papers and experience for the certificate is a violation. There are several applicants who may have provided false information to obtain the approval of such organizations to enter the test. if they succeeded in deceiving these organizations for some time, they will be in the eyes of their colleagues, with no credibility because their colleagues know how they were able to deceive these organizations to get access to the test. However, It is difficult to pass the tests if they do not already have the experience required for such field. So, there will be another station to evaluate their ability to pass the test. Therefore, the applicant must choose the certificate which truly commensurate with his experience and abilities.

Thirdly, we may find the holders of the professional certificate, although they have obtained the certificate and have totally agreed to follow such ethical values associated with it. While we find that the clear majority apply these rules, but there are some who may not follow these rules and mislead the community by conducting such immoral acts. We conclude that the social culture may affect the certificate holders to make decisions that may conflict with the ethical values that they already have agreed to, and this leads to the loss of the profession  which they work in. and then it raises some questions to the professional organization that gave them this certificate.

Therefore, we conclude that adherence to rules and ethical values in the field of professional certificates is the main basis that leads to the success of organizations and the individual and society in general.  

Ethics and project managers in an era of digitalization

Digitalization of organizations in private and public sector is perceived as a natural move that organically was created by the technological advancement of the last 10-20 years. This shift at strategic and operational level bring changes to the organization and their people, from the work environment, and work style, to culture, technological adaptation, tools, communication, learning, with direct impact on the current employee, and their leaders.

As leaders, project managers and their teams are engaged in this wave of changes, and transformations that impact them.

With access to technology, with projects co-located, with virtual work environment becoming a norm, practically project managers and their project team manipulate and use information using in-house systems, communication platforms, and very often social media.

In this blog, I encourage you to join me in a generic case, hypothetical, that describes a social media situation, and does not refer to an instance.

As project managers, we comply and obey the PMI Code of Ethics, the Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct  , the code of the organization that employs us, and sometimes the code for

our profession.

Emily is a senior project manager at a federal government department and currently manages a large team engaged in the delivery of an IT project. Emily is very proud of her team and very keen to usually complete timely and successfully the projects she manages. Emily is a top-notch specialist, well respected in her field, with PMI certifications, well known for her ethical values and her ability to “speak truth to power”.             

Most recently Emily worked on a status report of the project she currently manages; here, she explicitly demonstrated the difficulties and challenges of the project, that is over the budget, behind schedule, has unexpected changes in the business requirements; Emily also detailed the authority challenges she is faced with, as a project manager, in dealing with the executive group of decision-makers.

Emily is very involved in social media, and she is present on almost all the current platforms.  She is engaged in numerous professional networks, where she actively interacts, on a weekly and sometimes daily basis with peers and her network, work colleagues, and the professional community.

In a recent blog, Emily wrote about the challenges project managers in federal government face on each project they manage.  Emily described very vividly in her blog the challenges she and her team are facing and presented a real picture of the recent difficulties she and her team is dealing with.    Emily expressed her personal beliefs on the work environment, the organization and the success of projects, and complained about the short-sighted decision of senior management. Emily asked her network to comment and as days went by Emily saw an increased volume of responses from users of various social media platforms who started to comment, critique, offered ideas and views and making direct and indirect connections with Emily’s current job and project. Emily found herself in an overwhelming situation!

Do you think that Emily’s’ recent blog, her social media interest and her active presence on social media have something to do with ethics and the values of respect, responsibility, fairness, and honesty?

How should project managers behave on social media and what responsibility do they have to their team, and their employers?

What do we want project managers to know about the Code of Ethics and use of social media?

Is Emily in breach of the Values and Ethics Code?

As project managers, we have a conduit aligned to the PMI Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct (https://www.pmi.org/-/media/pmi/documents/public/pdf/ethics/pmi-code-of-ethics.pdf),

“As practitioners of project management, we are committed to doing what is right and honorable. We set high standards for ourselves and we aspire to meet these standards in all aspects of our lives—at work, at home, and in service to our profession.”.

For more ethical resources please visit: https://www.pmi.org/about/ethics.

Lily Murariu M. Eng. DBA in Project Management(c) 

Canada

Ethical behavior is not always legal and legal standards are not always ethical. This means that sometimes you have to make a tough decision.

Are you facing a situation in which you must choose between legal action and ethical action?

There is a difference between what is considered right according to legal standards and ethical standards. Legal standards are mandated by governmental laws. All the statutes and laws that attorneys point to are legal standards. Ethical standards, on the other hand, don't necessarily have a legal basis. They are based on human principles of right and wrong.

In one of my classes, a doctor said, “I’m working in a government hospital and we have a rule here that prevents me from giving cancer medicine to expats. I can only give it to the citizens. I believe this is not an ethical law, so whenever a citizen patient comes to me, I give him/her double the medicine’s quantity and ask the patient to give half of them to one who is not able to get it for free under the law.”

When she said that, the class divided into two camps. One camp said that you must follow the law because you are working within a system and it is not ethical to make these choices on your own. Others said that the choice you made is correct because you are a doctor and you have to find ways to save people’s lives. (If you are with us in the same class, which camp you will belong to? And why?)

This is where the ethical dilemmas come from—when we don’t know whether what we did is right or wrong. Cultural norms play a big role in defining what is ethical and what is not. That is why we need to consider the case itself and cultural norms before we judge whether it is ethical.

In this case, just imagine that a journalist found out about this case and made it the headline of the most famous newspaper. Would this person feel proud of what he/she did? If he or she is fine with this, that means there is some level of acceptance from society that what he or she did is ethical. Regardless, it may not be legal and it can cause trouble for the person. If we search around us, we can find many people who follow their ethical principles secretly while showing respect to the law in public. This helps them to avoid trouble when ethics and legality are in conflict.

Share with us some of the ethical dilemmas that you see around you in the project management field and how people deal with them.

'Oh no, not this now… This could only happen to me. Fudge and fiddlesticks!'

'What's got into you, Mishu? Why are you so hot under the collar? Rather ‘warm under the collar', Gogu thought to himself amused, as Mishu, the giant Transylvanian, always looked calm even when he was at his wits' end. But this time he must have been more upset than usual, as he wouldn't react to his friend's challenge. He continued to stare at the laptop screen, clearly affected by something on it, summoning – in a slow and emphatic way – all sorts of demons and spirits, without specifying exactly how they were supposed to contribute.

Suddenly, Mishu jumped to his feet, getting ready to leave.

'I'll be on my way now…'

'That I can see for myself… But where are you going? I thought we were supposed to have a beer…'

'What beer, Gogu? Fudge and fiddlesticks and freaking mice!'

'Mice?!'

'Aha', Mishu nodded, 'those race-car shaped mice that we received from the partners of the event. They're gone!!! Fudge and…'

'Wait a minute, Mishu, have a seat and explain this to me. What do you mean by they're gone? And what in the world do we have to do with them?'

The giant sat down obediently and, with a bit of fudge-and-fiddlesticking, he started talking about the reason of his distress. They had received some promo materials from their partners for the new product launch event: some race-car shaped mice. Gogu recalled the gadgets that faithfully replicated the hundreds-of-horsepower rides, with logos and accessories, colours and markings: some miniature gems, made with a strong sense of duty. Mishu, who was in charge with organizing the event, seeing how mesmerized was one of his colleagues with the mouse, had encouraged him to take one. Probably as a result of this encouragement, the other colleagues, as well as the interns in charge with the booth had raided the received promo materials until there were none left.

'How could they have taken them?! They belong to the company, right? We got them in the name of the company. How come they left with them at home? The next thing I know, they are going to take all the equipment with them, too. Are they going to take the office furniture at home, as well? Gogu, you do realize that this is as if they took money from the account of the company, right? This is theft, Gogu! Larceny!

Mishu's face was changing colors like a traffic light, as he kept getting worked up over this. When the thought about theft sprouted in his mind, he turned all red and seemed to settle for that. The conclusion that he had reached was terrifying him, and he was bereft of fudge and fiddlesticks and any other words. He was staring at Gogu, quietly begging for help. Suddenly, another idea popped into his mind and now not only was he left without words, but now he was also left without any air:

'And I was the one encouraging him... Thievery! I shall go to blazes, Gogu, hell is going to take me over!'

Gogu added another piece of wood to the fire:

'Mishu, what can I tell you? I think you are right. You told Robert he could take a mouse... and all the others thought they were given the green light...'

'What green light, man? What green light? Robert was the most hardworking one; it was a reward for his efforts. I didn't say anything to the others. Put a sock in it! So what, if I had told them to do so, they would have taken money from the account of the company?'

'I don't think they made the connection, Mishu, they must have seen the mice as some freebie accessories, without connecting their financial value with the fact that they had been received by the company and they are, therefore, company property. In this case, the fact that they took them did not look to them like stealing. Just like in that joke about the kid and the pens...'

'Fudge and fiddlesticking kid and his pens, what in the world would he have to do with my mice?'

Gogu burst into laughter: the fudge and the fiddlesticks were back again.

'It goes like this: a kid comes home and his dad notices that he has a new pen. He asks the kid what happened and the kid admits that he had taken his desk mate's pen. The father gets upset and lectures the kid on how wrong it is to take someone else's things, on respect for other people's property. In the end, he adds: 'And if you have nothing to write with, just let me know and I will bring you from work as many pens as you want...'

Ethics and  Governance in Project Management: Small Sins Allowed and the Line of Impunity (Eduardo Victor Lopez and Alicia Medina)

” Ethics must be cardinal to the overall management of any project, instead of merely a peripheral subject”.

 In an era of tremendous growth of project management as an occupation, professional project managers, ready, well-equipped, and capable to deliver successful projects become more and more in demand and a highly-valued commodity. 

For the past few decades there were intense and continue need of continue development of this class of blue collars, for cultivating technical skills along with soft skills, and strong ethics knowledge. This journey supports one’s trip within the complex realm of ethical aspects, with consideration of ramifications that ethics creates for project success.

Eduardo Victor Lopez and Alicia Medina brings their valuable work on ethics to the forefront and attention of project management. The book is an eulogy to the ethics culture in an organization, and to the relationship between ethics, ethical behaviours and governance.

In the ““Ethics and Governance in Project Management” Small Sins Allowed and the Line of Impunity”, the authors engage the reader in a journey on new perspectives on ethics, using a breadth of resources, in a well-documented, and well-researched material.

Lopez and Medina introduce the facets and complexities of ethics by building a parallel exercise with the Rubik Cube. Since its apparition, back in 1974, the Rubik Cube, identified as an eponymous cube, impacted art, design, science, engineering, math; it challenges humankind to explore the intricacies of this unique structure, the different perspectives and views it creates, while seeking innovative way for solving it. This context presents similarities to the project environment and the need for solving ethics problems. “We are of different opinion at different hours, but we always may be said to be at heart on the side of truth.”  This parallel perspective invites the reader to consider out-of-the box, fresh perspectives for ethic situation, and the authors discuss the mindset needed for evaluation of business ethics and its influence, exploring three main key concepts: ethics, context, and governance. 

How important is ethics and governance in project management? “When an ethical component is included in the vision of a project … it can move stakeholders at large to support this visions for reasons beyond those arising only from a financial nexus. The ability to fulfil the project’s social purpose influences its success”. The research conducted by the authors fill the noticed gap, the connection and the dependency between strategy and ethics, as “Most of the publications related to strategic planning throughout 1980s, and early 1990, omitted any mention of ethical and moral trues…” strategy and ethics are considered separate and unrelated matters”.

The novelty of the book is the unique ethical model and the two new ethical behaviours, interdependent to governance and its quality, and the context: Small Sins Allowed defined as “the mechanism that allow individuals to cheat on our own values “just by a bit”, concept defined as the updated socially accepted ethical standards, in the context of double standards, legality, and project culture, and, The Line of Impunity that impact at the individual level, creating a “detachment between business and ethics as many believe themselves as above the moral law”. 

The book’s style, content and format supports scholars and practitioners in nourishing their appetite for ethics knowledge, understanding of origins, linkages, and implications with other research areas. Readers will find the book immediately useful as the examples used are grounded in the reality, with immediate applicability to their day-to-day line of business. The case studies presented and the quizzes create smooth linkages between the topic and their relatedness to the reality. These tools give the book the taste of a well-defined ethics guide that can support equally a practitioner, a novice or a senior project manager. 

An excellent lecture, the book calls project managers to become aware of Small Sins Allowed and The Line of Impunity, build their own Rubik Cube, identify ethical attributes of their cube, and support the creation of an ethical culture embedded in the governance “that rewards ethical behaviour”.