Viewing Posts by Bryan Shelby
See Something, Say Something – But How?
| Running into her friend and colleague Samir, Lisa said “I’m glad I saw you -- I wanted to get your thoughts on something that happened in a meeting this week. I’m not sure what I should do.” “What do you mean?” replied Samir.
“Well, the other day we had a program meeting of all the PMs assigned to the new restructuring program to talk about stakeholder engagement. In the discussion, I mentioned that the PMBOK is a great guide to best practices in this domain. One of the PMs, new to our organization, asked what I was referring to – hard to believe, but she didn’t know about the PMBOK and only slightly knew about PMI. I suggested she think about joining PMI, and by way of proof I added that, as a member of PMI, I had a PDF download of the PMBOK and showed her the Stakeholder Engagement Domain section on my laptop. She was very interested and asked me to send her a copy of the PDF. When I explained that I could not do that because it would be a violation of the PMI Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct, she was visibly annoyed. To my surprise, another PM in the room then said he thought it wasn’t a big deal and sent her a copy of his right there in the meeting!” “Wow, that’s not good at all, he really shouldn’t have done that!” said Samir. “What are you going to do?” “I think I need to say something to someone about it, but I’m not sure who. Clearly, he doesn’t care that it’s a Code violation, so there’s no point in talking about it with him, but it would be wrong to just look the other way, right?” “Absolutely!” exclaimed Samir. “I think you need to report this to PMI. Let’s check the website to see what to do.” Lisa got out her phone and went to pmi.org. In the search bar, she entered “Ethics” and then scrolled down among the choices. Six or seven entries down, she clicked on “Ethics Complaints” where she found two links that looked helpful. For guidance on how to handle the situation, she saw that she could send an email to [email protected]. If she was pretty sure that further action was needed, then she could click the link to “File an Ethics Complaint.” “This is great, thanks for the help!” said Lisa excitedly. “I can get some advice, and now I know where to go to report it if I decide that’s what I should do.” * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * How about you? Have you ever observed unethical behavior by another PM? What did you decide to do, and why? Would your reaction be different depending on the severity of the ethical breach? Would you have had any different advice for Lisa? Comments and feedback welcome! |
You Can’t Always Get What You Want…
| Aaron and Ben have been friends and colleagues for many years. Ben owns a small software firm, and asked Aaron to step in to rescue a major project for an important government agency. With an inflexible deadline only six months away, the project is behind schedule and in danger of failing and Ben is very concerned that disappointing this client could mean going out of business.
At the end of his review, Aaron explained his findings one-on-one with Ben. He said that the good news was that there was time to finish the development of the original scope and a good chance, but no guarantee, that full testing and defect correction could be completed by the original deadline. On the other hand, the bad news was that, while the team could commit to completing development of the expanded scope by the deadline, it simply was not possible to complete testing by then. Therefore, Aaron advocated that they focus on completing the original scope, and that he and Ben meet with the client to explain that the delivery might be delayed by two to four weeks depending on testing. He went on to suggest that they explain to the client that the extensions to the scope could then be separately provided in a subsequent release. The team felt, and Aaron agreed, that the time needed to analyze and estimate that second release should instead be spent on delivering the original requirements. He strongly argued for a fully transparent meeting with the client to explain the situation and get them to buy into the proposed new plan. To Aaron’s surprise “I’ve got a problem and I don’t know what to do,” she said. “You’re the ethicist, maybe you have an idea!” “Please go on, my child” replied Petra with a smile (she is all of 12 days older). “How can I help?” “You know I’ve been given the JKL Tower project, right? It’s the biggest project in the city right now, and I’m wondering if I’m up to it. The architectural team has defined certain required tolerances for the building – the specifics aren’t important – but they far exceed what is required by the relevant regulations.” “Well, that makes sense,” interjected Petra. “Sort of a belt and braces approach, right?” "Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known." - Oscar Wilde |
Aaron was worried about risking their friendship, but eventually Ben convinced him. He started immediately with a two-week intensive project review. He quickly won the confidence of the project team. They were glad to have an audience for their project concerns because the previous PM had not wanted to give Ben or the client any bad news. As a result, he had agreed to scope expansion requests without assessing their impact on cost or schedule. Although the team told him that these additions meant it was impossible to meet the client’s deadline, he insisted that they try. It was a classic “watermelon project” – green on the outside, but red on the inside.
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Petra and Tracy are former university classmates and friends. After graduation, Petra became a philosophy professor and Tracy went into construction project management. In recent years they have taken a long walk each morning before starting their days. Sometimes they talk about life and family, and sometimes about work. Today, Tracy was clearly troubled and needed Petra’s perspective.
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