Business Ethics Dilemma Faced By Project Manager

ACS Code of Professional Conduct

Write a report on Ethical Analysis of Occidental Engineers.

Business ethics furnish an organisation with reasons for how things should be in corporate environment (Brusseau, 2012). In this report we will examine the business ethical dilemma faced by the project manager and test engineer of a software firm over the release of a prototype with a minor shortfall. Deborah, the project manager, is of the view to deliver the product as it is in order to meet the deadline and save her employees from losing their job. Wayne, on the other hand, does not want to release the software without testing it properly.  This situation is analysed using code of professional conduct given by ACS. Finally, suggested course of action will be advised.

ACS is an association of IT professionals all over Australia and has almost 25,000 members (www.acs.org.au, 2017). Australian Computer Society has designed a code of professional conduct to provide its members, who work in the field of Information and communication technology, with set of guidelines regarding professional conduct and practice.  The members are required to abide by the six core ethical values and maintain integrity in their respective work areas (Australian Computer Society , 2005).  By developing this code ACS has tried to codify the acceptable standards of conduct for IT professionals (Burmeister, 2000).

Ethical dilemmas are situations where managers are faced with business choices which cause tensions between ethics and professional gain (Sebhatua & Pei-lin, 2016). Occidental engineering was contracted by US Federal Aviation agency to develop a prototype for an air traffic control system. When this prototype was ready, Wayne, the test engineer, tested it and found that, in cases when there will be too many aircrafts to monitor the system might lose track of one or more of them.  These lost aircrafts are then prone to collisions which will be ignored by the system. 

As a test engineer Wayne’s dilemma is whether he should release the software in three days after a quick patch or he should refuse to release the code until it is tested thoroughly.

Wayne’s Duty as a Test Engineer

• Test engineer must keep the project manager aware of any challenges or costs that could impact the delivery of software.
• Running extensive test on software and ensuring that the software meets all the specifications without any loopholes(Johnson, 2017).

As a project manager Deborah will have to choose between delivering faulty software on time or put the project and the jobs of people associated with it at risk.

Deborah’s Duty as Project Manager

• Delivering the project on time, within scope and in the specified budget.
• Manage the relationship between clients and stakeholders.
• As a team leader it is the responsibility of Project manager to maintain the morale of team and safeguard their interest(Project-Management.com, 2015).

Following information is clearly given in the case study:

• Occidental Engineers is in the midst of a financial crisis which would force them to lay off employees in future.
• The final product meets all the specifications except for a small glitch. It would take the designers a month or more to rectify it but the product is to be delivered in 3 days and any extension is not possible.
• Occidental engineers had bid lower than what would actually cost them if they would do the work properly.

According to utilitarian theory if consequences of an act result in greatest amount of good for greatest number of persons then such act is considered as morally permissible (Gustafson, 2013). Five characteristics of Utilitarianism are a) consequentialism; b) individualism; c) aggregation; d) maximisation; e) and welfarism (Eggleston, 2012). In this particular case it is clear that Occidental Engineers is facing financial problems and tough competition from their competitors. It is also suggested in the case study that completion of this project called Operation Safe Skies also has a positive impact on their jobs. So by aggressively bidding for the project and quoting lower prices Occidental Engineers intend the following:

1. Improved financial condition of the organisation.
2. Job security its employees.

Hence, we can conclude that by aggressively bidding for this contract, as per the Utilitarian theory, Occidental Engineers were actually aiming at greatest amount of good for greatest number of persons.

Following are the key stakeholders and ways in that they could be affected

• Company-Occidental Engineers: As a result of not meeting the deadline Occidental Engineers might either have to lose the contract or if they get an extension to improve the code they might have to bear the cost of delay. Secondly, the news of non-deliverance by Occidental Engineers will have negative impact on their future dealings.
• Project Manager, Test Engineer and rest of the team: Employees will have to pay heavily with their jobs. As mentioned in the case, that, by not honouring the deadline or by delivering faulty software, the organization will not only face financial repercussions but will also jeopardize its employees’ career.
• The Rest: In case the delivery is made and the software is run in actual environment, lives of the passengers flying in the airplanes being monitored are at a risk, in case, the software loses control over any of the airplanes.
• Client-US Federal Aviation Agency: Consequences of accepting an aggressive bid for US Federal Aviation Agency could be as follows
• Putting the lives of thousands of passenger travelling by air at risk.
• Integrity and intentions of those sanctioning the bid will become questionable.
• Amount spent on development of this monitoring software will go in wane.

ACS Code of professional conduct gives its members a set of guidelines on which they should base their ethical decisions. Using these codes as a framework, following are the various alternative courses of action which Deborah and Wayne can choose to solve their dilemma:

• Inform the Client: Code of Ethics clearly mentions to maintain the trust of clients and public in the profession(Ferguson, Salmond, AI-Saggaf, Bowern, & Weckert, 2005). Keeping this in mind it is advisable to let the client and the management know about the shortfall in the software and be ready to face the consequences.
• Address the fault with a quick patch: As per the code IT professionals are accountable for the quality and timeliness of the work they are responsible for. Hence, another solution will be to deliver the software by covering the fault with a quick patch and informing the client about the minor problem at promising to replace the software with an improved one in stipulated time.
• Ask for extension: According to the code it is the responsibility of the IT professionals to deliver what has been promised to the client. In this case the software which is otherwise meeting all the specifications has a small but significant error. One solution could be to ask for an extension and try to rework on the software in this timeframe and deliver a filly functional and fool proof software(Anderson, Johnson, Gotterbarn, & Perolle, 1993).

Conclusion

Code of ethics defined by ACS provides comprehensive guidelines for ethical conduct of an IT Professional. This code ensures beneficial use of Information and Communication Technology for everyone. It has been observed in various studies IT professionals are faced with various dilemmas in their day to day work life and in absence of a code of conduct they take unjustifiable decisions (Aliti, 2015). In this case impact of decision taken by project engineer will impact all the team members along with the image of Occidental Engineers. But putting Code of conduct guidelines given by ACS in perspective following things are clear i) giving green signal to this project will be against the welfare of public at large, ii) Hiding the knowledge of technical glitch in the software will raise questions about the honesty and integrity of Occidental Engineers, iii) and finally, not honouring the deadline will considered unprofessional. Hence, the best solution to the dilemma faced by Wayne and Deborah will be to ask for minimum possible extension and informing the client about the fault in software. In this way they can avoid delivering a faulty product and maintain integrity and professionalism.

Aliti, A. (2015). Ethical dilemmas of software engineers . Papers from the 18th annual Dilemmas International Research Conference , (pp. 1-7).

Anderson, R. E., Johnson, D. G., Gotterbarn, D., & Perolle, J. (1993). Using the new ACM code of ethics in DEcision Making. Communications of the ACM, 36(2), 98-107.

Australian Computer Society . (2005). ACS code of professional conduct and professional practice. Australian Computer Society.

Brusseau, J. (2012). Business Ethics. Creative Commons.

Burmeister, O. K. (2000). Applying the ACS Code of Ethics. Journal of Research and Practice in Information Technology, 32(2), 107.

Eggleston, B. (2012). Utilitarianism. Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics, 4, 452-458.

Ferguson, S., Salmond, R., AI-Saggaf, Y. l., Bowern, M., & Weckert, J. (2005). Case studies and codes of ethics: the relevance of the ACS experience to ALIA. Australian Library Journal, 299-308.

Gustafson, A. (2013). In Defense of a Utilitarian Business Ethic. Business and Society Review, 118(3), 325-360.

Johnson, D. W. (2017). Automated software testing: The role of a test engineer. Retrieved December 27, 2017, from techtarget.com: https://searchsoftwarequality.techtarget.com/tip/Automated-software-testing-The-role-of-a-test-engineer

Project-Management.com. (2015). Project Manager Roles and Responsibilities for Software Projects. Retrieved December 27, 2017, from www.project-management.com: https://project-management.com/project-manager-roles-responsibilities-software-projects/

Sebhatua, S. P., & Pei-lin, L. (2016). What is Governance? The Ethical Dilemma for Leaders and Managers: Multiple Case Studies of Corruption from China. Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, 224, 467-474.

www.acs.org.au. (2017). www.acs.org.au. Retrieved December 28, 2017, from www.acs.org.au: www.acs.org.au