Fiduciary Responsibilities and Project Management

Dear Luis,

I would say no. To call it Fiduciary responsibilities would be misleading especially in a legal context.

What a project manager has in relation to responsibilities is both matched by law, by the organizations own standards, any professional body that the project manager is a member of and guidelines that the project manager has signed up to and of course the project manager own set of ethics and morals which will ultimately self govern how a project manager conducts themselves.

This extends to treating team members equally and fairly, financial conduct, transparency in decision making process and abiding by the laws of the jurisdiction that the project manager resides in.

How a project manager approach ethics and morals in a professional setting is getting a lot of traction in recent questions being asked in the forums. The reasons for this could be that it is seen as an additional strength of a project manager if they can be shown to be ethical and morally strong.

A good approach would be if PMI could award accreditation to projects manager who could demonstrate (either through an audit of projects, references from clients or some other mechanism) that they uphold the highest standard expected from them as a project manager. I believe this would set a lot of project managers apart from their peers.

Daire

The role of a fiduciary (again, in the United States; it may be different elsewhere) is financial in nature; it entails acting on behalf of a person or organization to safeguard their financial interests. (See the definition at https://definitions.uslegal.com/f/fiduciary)

A project manager has a moral and ethical responsibility to manage the project's resources in a way that benefits the project, its stakeholders, and the organization as a whole, but this generally does not rise to the level of a fiduciary.

An exception to this would be if the organization gave the project manager funds to hold in a separate bank account under their control. In this case the PM would have a fiduciary responsibility to manage those funds to the organization's best interest.

The difference is a matter of control; in most cases a PM is given a budget against which they submit and approve expenditures, but the funds are held in a company account that the PM does not control. When the funds are held in an account owned or controlled by the PM then they become a fiduciary.

Yes, Yes & No - as I indicated in my initial response, the responsibilities of a PM extend well beyond just fiduciary responsibilities towards the company they work for.

Dear Daire.
Thank you for sharing your opinion with us

Do you consider it feasible:
"A good approach would be if PMI could award accreditation to projects manager who could demonstrate (either through an audit of projects, references from clients or some other mechanism) that they uphold the highest standard expected from them as a project manager"

Dear Luis,

In a lot of professional (Medicine, Law, Military) newly qualified people are required to swear an oath to uphold the highest standards with in their chosen profession.

This is acknowledgement by their superiors that there maybe times and situation when their credibility and character maybe called into question and thus in order for them to keep their jobs they must adhere to this code, standard and legal obligation.

So the question is, if these professions can implement a standard and bar for their members to live up to and maintain, why cant other professions implement such a system.

An accreditation process would be acknowledgement that such a person is 'clean' with regard their ethics and morals but PMI would still need to implement an ethics and moral guideline and framework of their own in order to benchmark their members against. Otherwise they would have to use the law in each country that a member resides in order to benchmark and accredit a member against.

I do see such a system as becoming necessary in a lot of profession in the near future. It would be akin today of getting a background check before joining an organization.

Daire

Dear Daire
Thank you for your opinion

In Portugal, the Order of Engineers has a code of ethics and deontology that must be respected by all its members

What is your opinion about the 4 fiduciary responsibilities mentioned by me?

Dear Luis,

"We can consider:
- Duty of Care
- Duty of Loyalty
- Duty of Obedience
- Duty of Integrity

As fiduciary responsibilities of the Project Manager?"

I do agree that Two out of the Four traits that you have outlined, that being Duty of care and Duty of integrity are traits required by Fiduciary people in the course of their work. However Duty of Obedience and Duty of Loyalty would be more reserved for people in the Military.

When you talk about Fiduciary people you are nearly exclusively talking about person who are financially sound and who are acting on behalf of a agent normally assigned by some sort of covenant or contract or trust fund until the agent in question reach a certain age of maturity or a certain medical condition.

Daire

Dear Daire
Thank you for your opinion

Still on the topic you mentioned:

When we join PMI we accept to respect and comply with the code of ethics

If any member violates the code of ethics, depending on the severity, it can be eradicated from PMI

What are the consequences for the exercise of the profession as project manager?

As you said, and well, each country has its own legislation.

I am convinced that it will be difficult, at least for now, to prevent someone from exercising their professional activity for violation of the code of ethics

Dear Luis,

When you join PMI you sign up to a voluntary code of ethics that has no legal consequences or ramifications except maybe in certain circumstances you may lose you PMI recognized qualification and membership but it does not stop a person from calling themselves a project member or still practicing as a project member.

In my own country I have noticed with professional bodies an inability or lack of desire to bring prosecutions against their members who have breached the law and associated Code of Ethics.

There has being a distinct slowness in instigating investigations were amble evidence has been submitted to the professional bodies that would warrant an investigation.

In many cases it takes action from the Department of Justice to make things happen.

So are these professional bodies acting in the best interest of its members or the public?

The last thing a professional body like PMI whats to be seen is protecting members who are only acting in their own best interests and not of their clients, employees or the general public.

Actions have consequences and in project management where budgets can run into the billions, take decades to implement and employee thousands of people, it is important that accountability is maintain throughout the lifecycle of the project.

Daire