Roland HoffmannPrincipal| Hoffmann ConsehoSan Antonio, Tx, United States
I'm researching project manager ethics. I'd welcome your comments, opinions and observations about the ethical issues you commonly encounter as a PM. Maybe you often have to resolve conflicts of interest, HR issues (discrimination, harassment, bullying), or expected to use deceit or dishonesty. What are the things that test your integrity?
Thank you for the input!
Roland
PS: I've posted the same question in the "observations" forum. If you see this twice, sorry for the redundancy. Saving Changes...
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Mark Price PerryBusiness Driven PMO Evangelist| BOT InternationalOrlando, Fl, United States
Roland, very interesting post and research project you have here. The relationship between law and ethics is an interesting one. You can construct a simple 2x2 grid analysis of ethical/non-ethical and legal/illegal and identify all kinds of observable behaviors for each quadrant. Over the years, I have found that one of the biggest challenges, with respect to ethics, that project managers face is deciding what action to take after observing flagrant wrongdoing. Project managers inherently participate in many aspects of the companies they work for. They see the actions of the leadership team and others and in many cases are disclosed confidential and highly sensitive information. But what action does a project manager take when they have witnessed wrongdoing that is illegal and/or unethical? That is a tough test and one in which the right answer is seldom the easiest answer. Saving Changes...
Elizabeth HarrinDirector| RebelsGuideToPM.comLondon, England, United Kingdom
Mark Price PerryBusiness Driven PMO Evangelist| BOT InternationalOrlando, Fl, United States
Elizabeth, great list of tips. Like them all and I too would view #5 as the anchor and last tip. Saving Changes...
Wayne MackRetired| RetiredSouth Riding, Va, United States
I am not sure if this crosses the line into ethical dilemmas, but one challenge is determining when to inform a client of issues. A project manager often has to make decisions without complete information, so there is often a trade-off between informing a client early and enduring false positives on arising issues; and waiting to inform the client until it is clear that a significant issue has arisen. When following the former approach, the project manager can become viewed as Chicken Little or The Boy WHo Cried Wolf while following the latter, one can viewed as the Band Playing on the TItanic up until the ship sinks. It is very easy to get placed in both camps when trying to balance the too early / too late dilemma.
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