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What is the most common conflict of interest

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Theodore Boccuzzi PM Consultant| Johnson Controls / Tyco Retail Solutions Penfield, Ny, United States
What is the most common conflict of interest that you’ve encountered as a project management professional? If you’ve not encountered one that you know of, what do you think is the most common?
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Paul Pelletier Project management key note speaker, author, corporate lawyer, and executive| Paul Pelletier Consulting Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
The most common COI that I've encountered working on projects in various countries is some form of direct or indirect financial benefit for one of the parties that flows out of the project. It could be that the person has a training business that will benefit by providing follow-up training. It could be that a family member will get work out of the project. It could be that gifts or kick backs are given to the person for involving their network in the project. It can take many forms but each one is a Conflict of Interest. In most cases, the person in the conflict either didn't disclose it or when asked about it, saw nothing wrong with it. It was usually described as "part of doing business here."

I found this disturbing and reminded the PMPs involved that they had very clear PM Professional Conduct and Code of Ethics obligations to meet. Sometimes that led to full disclosure and a decision from stakeholders as to how to address the COI. Other times it was even better - there was disclosure and PM recused himself/herself from all decisions regarding the COI. However, in a couple of cases the PM refused to do anything. These were before the introduction of our Code of Ethics so there was little I could do other than advise the team I had concerns about a potential COI.
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Michael Ziyadeh Contracts Negotiator Sr. | Sikorsky, a Lockheed Martin Company Branford, Ct, United States
Anything giving one entity over another an unfair advantage in business may be considered a conflict of interest. In my industry the type of conflict we are most sensitive towards is making oneself the preferred candidate in a bid. One scenario where this can come about is when a company is hired to create specifications. The buyer then can take the specifications and bid out production. If the company creating the specifications bids on the production of the job it will be seen as an unfair advantage, developing from a conflict of interest.
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1 reply by Vincent Guerard
Mar 06, 2017 11:32 AM
Vincent Guerard
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I was once told not to bid if the proposal was written by a competitor!
It often include a wording or something that they have an exclusivity, so unfair advantage.
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Vincent Guerard Coach - Trainer - Speaker - Advisor| Freelance Mont-Royal, Quebec, Canada
Mar 02, 2017 11:39 PM
Replying to Rami Kaibni
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Hi Vincent,

I agree with you that new discussions even on old subject are always good and attracts different people with different opinions. I never mentioned otherwise !

I referred Theodore to that discussion because it is very recent and as you said different opinions so he might find some valuable feedback there besides here.
We both agree it is good to look at the older discussions, I appreciate that you could refer the link.
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Vincent Guerard Coach - Trainer - Speaker - Advisor| Freelance Mont-Royal, Quebec, Canada
Mar 06, 2017 11:01 AM
Replying to Michael Ziyadeh
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Anything giving one entity over another an unfair advantage in business may be considered a conflict of interest. In my industry the type of conflict we are most sensitive towards is making oneself the preferred candidate in a bid. One scenario where this can come about is when a company is hired to create specifications. The buyer then can take the specifications and bid out production. If the company creating the specifications bids on the production of the job it will be seen as an unfair advantage, developing from a conflict of interest.
I was once told not to bid if the proposal was written by a competitor!
It often include a wording or something that they have an exclusivity, so unfair advantage.
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