The Ethical Dilemma of a Project Manager
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Ethics and ethical behavior refer to general principles such as honesty, integrity, and morals. Acting ethically is noble and involves greater self-control, discipline, and maturity. Acting ethically is critical in our professional and personal situations. I recently came across a problem as follows. Mary* was a senior leader in ABC company that dealt with offshoring business processes to companies from other sides of the world. This was done to maintain a strategic advantage for the company and provide 24*7 cover for business operations. Mary had been a disciplined and dedicated project manager for the company with proper ethical behavior and practices. She exhibited immense integrity in the most challenging times of the project. As a result, she was often cited in meetings for her exemplary behavior. A recent incident in the organization proved challenging for Mary and her reputation. Mary was a part of the meeting with senior leadership. The meeting had been called to discuss some crucial scope changes to the existing project. The client representatives had proposed a complex feature to the application. Mary was aware of the existing skillsets of the resources on the project. The change was tricky, and she would need to retrain the existing resources or hire new skill sets. On realizing that this would pose difficulty in delivering the project, Mary quickly pointed this out. She knew she was responsible and accountable for the project. However, one of the senior leadership members challenged Mary’s concerns and asked her to agree to deliver the complex feature. Mary knew the current status and informed the leader about the situation. The leader, however, was firm in his direction as he knew the feature would help the project and the company. Mary and her team needed help to deliver the project and struggled while executing it. Due to unsatisfactory deliverables, the client withdrew their support for the project. The leadership summoned Mary to discuss what had happened. Mary put down her papers in the same meeting and resigned immediately. According to the Project Management Institute’s Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct, the definition of Responsibility is as follows. 2.1 Description of Responsibility Responsibility is our duty to take ownership of the decisions we make or fail to make, the actions we take or fail to take, and the consequences that result. Responsibility as a value is described in detail on its aspirational and mandatory standards in The Code. Did Mary act as per her responsibility? What is the difference between responsibility and accountability? Did Mary adhere to PMI’s Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct? I would like to know what you think about this situation. *Name changed to protect privacy Resources PMI’s Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct: https://www.pmi.org/-/media/pmi/documents/public/pdf/ethics/pmi-code-of-ethics.pdf?rev=6af21906e5934b638ceeabeb4137f41d&sc_lang_temp=en PMI’s Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct Value Cards: https://www.pmi.org/-/media/pmi/documents/public/pdf/ethics/code-values-card.pdf?rev=44578e34774241568ce0034489794fe4&sc_lang_temp=en PMI’s blog on Ethics, “Ethics Bistro”: https://www.projectmanagement.com/blogs/365304/ethics-bistro
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