Ethics to consider in Project Management

Do we need to consider ethics in this fast-moving world?

Ethics is the basic moral to be considered in and between every level of employee-employer relations in any field.  Ethics in project management is definitely a necessity. 

Why does Project Management Ethics demand the limelight?

Each and every field like a medical, technological, commercial, and even startup possess its own set of moral protocols in every set of hierarchies for the smooth conduction of project and procurement.

From the above statement, you will get a certain analysis that you need to undergo some set of project-related management. So you have some ethics to consider in project management involved in many fields masked or unmasked.

Ethics in any field can influence the psychological balance and tolerance between the top management and the lower management employees.

As far as the working environment is mostly filled with human beings to the maximum extent ethics are to be ardently considered by you and your employer.

Few academics such as Henry Harvin are providing project management courses in India that will help a qualified person to learn about the ethical dimension of project management.

1. What is project management?

Project management is the technology involving a team and certain elements collaborating to attain a specific task to be established for a company or firm.

You may be a part or may be involved in the top idea provider to execute that particular task.

Managing a project’s exhibits has its own situational ethics to be followed. Considering the team’s ideas is the primary ethic to consider in the project management field.

Steps for managing a project

Initially when you are landing on an idea about a project. Consequently, many suggestions may flow in to be taken care of. Even if the idea is from a low-level employee or a high-level employee you have to identify the facts in those ideas.

After the idea is confirmed, additionally you have to plan for a backup idea simultaneously agreed by scrutinizing the suggestions.

After that, you would be responsible for allocating the teams, while allocating a proper psychological balance should be identified and collected among the members of the team. 

The most prominent ethics in project management is the emotional balance among the team and the transparency of decision changes or feedback among all the levels of employees in that particular project hosted by you.

Altogether project management is a field of planning and executing a project in the desired field where you have some ethics to consider.

2. Ethics in project management

Let us have a deep journey on how ethics influences the project management field.

AS potter Stewart quoted:

“Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do. ”

Potter Stewart

The rights we have can be majorly classified into four main subheadings:

• Accountability
• Conflicts of interest
• Culture in workplaces
• Health and Safety

a) Accountability

This involves a greater responsibility in you and ethics in project management. Accountability is purely the responsibility. 

The responsibility you have to show in each and every stage of your project.

Keep the track of your work report and every little change you make. Grant permission if you are in that position or acquire permission if you are liable for that affair.

b) Conflicts of interest

Probably this step is the most important part when ethics in the project management field is considered.

Each person even if he is skilled or not has his own opinion or idea about a task.

If a manager only moves according to his intentions and conclusion obviously the project will have to face conflicts between ideas and the person working on them. 

So this issue must be a considerable factor.

c) Culture in Workplaces

Basic hygiene is to be followed by you in any place, situation, or environment. It psychologically involves basic common sense.

Eventually, that common sense follows you to achieve ethics in project management. 

Each and every person demands foundational respect for freedom of speech and expression. 

Additionally, we have to predetermine not to hurt anyone, poking his dignity even though he is low-level labor that may affect workplace vibrations.

d) Health and Safety

Ethics in project management meant needing basic care for your coworkers by you if you are leading the project.

Especially the case is the health and safety of all the employees in a working environment.

Consequently, this will provide a great friendship among colleagues. If it is not happening you are forcing yourself to be nonethical in managing a project. 

First and foremost giving importance to Health and safety would be great ethics in project management.

If you are conscious of these above ethics in project management, you are on your way to evolving as a manager in any project.

Still, there are many frameworks that could become a necessity in achieving ethics in project management.

3. How do maintain ethics in the Project Management field?

Starting a good initiative is not at all conclude that initiative. We have to keep records to maintain that stuff.
No maintenance no result should be the mantra for ethics in project management. There are a few factors that will support these maintenance factors for ethics in project management.

• Behavior
• Trust building
• Effective leadership
• Success in Project

a) Behavior ethics in project management

The basic psychology of humans is to behave nicely to his co beings. This nice behavior will eventually become vibrations that will spread out for wonderful work culture.

Give and take policy will additionally evolve that will make everyone involved in a project if something lack in exposing this behavioral ethics in project management will obviously put out a question of cooperation.

Between the colleagues, if this particular approach is absent internal conflicts and politics will arise.

b) Trust Building

The most prominent factor of ethics in project management is building trust internally and externally among the members involved in particular projects.
If we build transparency of idea transmitting and receiving will enhance the essence of the project.
If we do not keep the trust and leak out the information in the form of gossiping and criticizing, we intend to forget the work culture and good going of the project.

c) Effective Leadership

Without leadership, the ethics in project management will obviously lose the direction of movement of getting a fair output.
A leader in a supervising position will get a proper timeline and direction in each and every stage. Through this process of sufficient suggestion and observation, the project will be carried out perfectly.

There is a lot of discrimination between a boss and a leader, beware of becoming bossy in any certainty. Keep intact the leadership quality to improve the complexity of projects.

d) Success in project management

Success for ethics in project management is the cumulative effort of the above three factors. If you lack to follow any one of those elements will eventually let you down in the case of success of that particular project.

We have to look forward to our co-members concern in each stage for providing the right choices. Providing all factors in a plethora will push forward your success factors to a large extent.

4. How do identify and troubleshoot ethics in project management?

Identifying and troubleshooting the flaws in cooperating and suggestions in a project should be rectified by you and your co-members in an early stage would be helpful for a better output.
Here are some elements listed for you to overcome the challenges.

• Identify
• Validate
• Alternatives
• Shoot and aim
• Ready to face

a) Identifying the problems in ethics

For instance, if one of your subordinates makes an ethical problem that collapses the entire flow of the project.
First of all sort out what kind of ethical problem it is. How that problem impacts your workflow?
Talk to the particular employee about why such incidents happened to them and which circumstances made them perform.
If the situation can be resolved by you, and that resolution doesn’t disrupt the workflow implement that as soon as possible.

b) Validating the ethics in project management

If the situation where an ethical problem is created and that particular problem had a complex impact. You have to keep note of that issue and a deep validation must be carried out.
Initially, you have to revisit such problems that previously happened and the steps taken to resolve them. If it’s a new issue talk with your senior managers as you are new to this issue and perfect guidance is necessary for the smooth movement of the project.

c) Alternative decisions

Once a problem is created by your subordinates and it demands crucial decision-making. In a short period of time, you have to arrange multiple troubleshooting paths to solve that ethical problem.
Arrange a meeting with the whole team, express your reviews on the problem and these are the ways you are going to solve it.
Get an instant poll and which suggestion gains good popularity and which decision is viable for the future of that particular project.
Move with that decision.

d) Shoot and aim

This is a do-or-die game for you as a manager, supervising the project. If the employee who created those complex ethical issues is an inevitable factor in the project.
You have no time to analyze the issue, you have to shoot out the most intentional decision and move straight forward with the project.
Sometimes this decision-making consequently troubles you all through the project. Many times it may become a threat to your career.

e) Ready to face

Not every decision is a favorable decision, you have to keep that in mind in every situation.
One or other way it is going to impact some of your employees in a negative manner.
Obviously, you have to get ready for an escalation, may not be a serious one it will impact the energy of your day at work.
Steady up and ready to face.

5. Identify what ethical issue you are facing

When a situation of ethical violation is happening, you have to be aware of what type of issue it is.
How the issue will influence the team’s work culture, environmental vibrations, and workflow?
Now we can discuss seven types of ethical issues which may impact your company’s workflow.

• Favoring team members
• Putting out blame
• Forcing to perform unethical affairs
• Acting unnoticed
• Stealing other team’s techniques
• Taking wrong decisions
• Implementing other company policies in your company

a) Favoring team members

Being unreliable and lazy will eventually create an ethical problem in project management. In addition to that, it will spread toxicity in the working environment.
It will also make a dedicated and efficient employee underperform simultaneously these activities drag the project timeline. If noticed favoring team members should be stopped immediately, since it will spoil the employees’ careers.

b) Putting out blame

The situation that happens when a mistake happens in the process of project management. If that employee is unsatisfied with the company norms and lazy too will eventually put that consequences on his higher or lower colleagues.
These activities are very sensitive ethics to be considered in project management.

c) Forcing to do unethical affairs

For example, bribing other potential competitors. Additionally influencing his team members to do errors or give a share of his bribe to let the project and company down.
It is a punishable offense, and once noticed will negatively impact the employee and the team’s coordination and career.

d) Acting unnoticed

A psychological issue, these kinds of employees and their activities are to be identified at an early stage. If you are in a position to manage a project you can have a discussion session with that employee and can support him mentally.
This will simultaneously enhance his performance outcome.

e) Stealing other teams’ techniques

Hard work related to your project may support practically, but it is a potential criminal issue you have to face regarding the intellectual property rights regarding those projects.
You have to cross-check each and every step of how your project is evolving. This activity of validating will put a halt to a crime to have happened in any manner.

f) Taking wrong decisions

An extensive up to you as a manager. Any procedure of your project’s transformation needs a call taken by your side which may be complex.
A step back or a recovery time is needed to check the probability of the multiple decision framework by you. Throwing out a wrong decision increases the chance of creating an ethical issue in project management.

g) Implementing other companies’ policies in your company

An ethical issue that is similar to stealing others’ hard work which is an intellectual property issue.
Create your own policies by having extensive research by observing other companies’ policies. Reworking those policies according to your intentions and your higher authority’s suggestions will provide you with a great solution.

6. Solutions for the above-mentioned seven ethical issues in project management

• Talk to your team members extensively and ensure any kind of mental and material support from a higher authority.
• Make sure that your colleagues are on good terms in case of work culture, if any discrepancies are found, discuss and solve them immediately.
• Try to observe all the employee’s emotional balance and sort the odd ones out and shadow them, If you find something fishy that could damage your work culture collect factual evidence on them.
• Have discussions about the progress of your project, and ensure the participation and contribution of each and every member involved in the project, low participation must be evoked soon.
• Be aware of the social collaboration of your company and have a healthy relationship with competitors, An unsatisfied employee will surely be the bait to your competitor, and that should be rectified soon.
• Not only do your members in the project make mistakes, but always improve yourself so as not to fall into a trap of making decisions, If you are not sure about anything have extensive research to optimize the project flow.
• Compiling policies and regulations will be challenging as a manager, applying a basic framework is not wrong but the same as your competitor is wrong. Be cautious about this affair of implementing something in your company and team.

7. Ethical Violation

Ethical violation is a predominant factor to be considered while implementing a company’s policies or regulations.
Compiling these violations will become a great consideration for a company’s norms towards the employees. Resulting will be a good outcome for products and projects.

• Discrimination
• Health and Safety
• Harassment
• Technology
• Privacy
• Social Media
• Unethical Accounting

Discrimination according to caste, sex, color, and race has to be completely criminal which accordingly improves your company’s cultural ethics.

Provide health insurance in groups and precautions to be taken care of while in the working environment.
Gender-based harassment and skill-based harassment are growing intensively. You have to initiate efficient steps to avoid that kind of activity in your work surroundings.

Technology usage for transferring your techniques and unnecessary usage of the internet for personal purposes must be absolutely restricted for the productivity of your company.

Privacy of each and every employee must be your primary concern, as you are a manager in addition to that privacy between the different sections of your employees must be observed simultaneously.

Social media escalation nowadays is growing extensively among the employees of a particular company, it is your responsibility as a manager to avoid those activities, which may affect the growth of your company in the future.

Unethical accounting of any materialistic factors relating to an employee is to be restricted from the initial stage which may not spoil their hardworking mentality.

8. Principles to be followed for ethics in Project Management

Plan of communication

Create a flow of work based on your project and the hierarchies of that particular project.

A baseline of performance management

Keep track of the employee’s performance and accountability to improve productivity along with quality.

Risk management

Each project exposes its own risk in each and every step, so analyze that risk and perform accordingly.

Roles and responsibility

Each role and responsibility related to the project must be documented and also be transparent to all employees involved in that particular project.

Goals and outcomes

Clear objectives should be analyzed and documented early, to carry on the smooth transition of the project in all stages.

Keeping track of all these above elements will simultaneously lead to a wonderful track of your project and your management ethics. Each step framework is mandatory and a few sub-tracks such as management change, and mature value.

9. Where to get a certification in Project management?

Henry Harvin Academy

For Getting a Project management certification in India, Henry Harvin’s courses rank top among other institutes in many ways. The primary factor is their learning convenient approach, which makes learners from different sides can easily enroll and complete courses with many benefits.

Their training method involves all aspects written in the PMBOK guide and implements virtual quizzes and simulations.

Once you are done with this course online, you can achieve insights into the different management structures and various ethical procedures.

The other main advantage of this course is you can earn a business analytics certificate at no cost.

• Two modes of learning are available either you can go with self-paced or online learning.
• Lifetime memberships in learning management systems available, and different instructors recorded classes are available at your fingertip.
• Orientation through zoom is available for resume writing, placement assessment, interviews, and all-time assistance provided.
• The internship is provided after the course duration with certification.
• Monthly Boot camp sessions typically provide for sharpening your skills with the help of industry experts.
• 100% money back guarantee if you are not satisfied
• Access to digital materials from PMI.

Course Duration

36 hours of instruction apart from boot camp sessions, Orientation sessions and internship training are also available.

Certification and Course fee

After the successful completion of the course, we get a hallmarked certification which has a global acclamation and the course is Rs.14,900 according to the mode of learning.

Conclusion

Summarizing the above factors which is very much essential for enhancing a company’s work culture. You can get a clear picture of where the ethics have to be implemented and where to identify the ethical mismatch found in your company surrounding. Passing those ethical issues in project management simultaneously avoids sticking you in a toxic and still unachieved project progress.
Implementing the right ethics may help you to create a good company environment and allow to shine you as a manager in any project.