Project Management Ethics Dilemma

This assignment revolves around a scenario where a project manager is asked to submit a project a month earlier than scheduled, despite concerns about data encryption and security. The project manager must weigh the benefits of meeting the deadline against the potential risks to clients' personal data. This ethical dilemma requires critical thinking and analysis of business ethics principles.

SCHOOL OF COMPUTING AND MATHS, Charles Sturt University
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Assignment 1: Doing Ethics Technique
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Word Count: 900

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ITC506 Assessment Item 1- Marking Sheet
Total Obtained Marks /100 & /15
Q1. What's going on?
The program director asks the project manager to submit the project a month early
even without encrypting the project. The project manager is seen in a dilemma regarding
the proceedings of the project ("Scenario 3: Early Launch", 2018).
Q2. What are the facts?
The important facts mainly include the director of the project wanted to get an
access to the manager in charge of the project regarding the early submission of the project.
The project manager, Greg enters the cabin of the program director. The director of the
project urges the project manager to submit the ongoing project a month early. The project
manager confronts that he has been speaking to the senior developer lately and the senior
developer told him that it will be hard for the team to submit the project assigned by the
Willis Company even on the due date. The program director insists the manager of the
project to submit the task a month before the date. The project manager did not seem to
be convinced regarding the fact of submitting the project without encrypting the project
because the project manager was worried about the security of the end users, as without
encryption of data in the project it will lead to massacre of exposition of data of the users in
an unauthorized way. The program director provides lucrative offers for the project
developing team and the project manager himself that will contain huge amount of
incentives. Still the project manager seems to be uncertain regarding the security of the
project. The program director tells him that on completion of the project before a month
from the scheduled time then the company will get another project worth a hefty amount.
Withstanding of the lucrative offers the project manager still seems confused and the
conversation between the project manager and the product director is seen to continue
Q3. What are the issues?
The main issue is launching the project earlier than the due date. The director urges
the manger of the project a month before than the allotted deadline previously while
accepting the project. With all the hard work being done the program director told the
project manager to submit the project earlier.
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The project manager was not ready to submit the project. The project manager was
concerned about the security of the project that they were making.
Even if the project is submitted a month earlier than the due date then the problem
with the project will be that encryption in the project will not be present leading to the fact
of exposition of personalized data by un authenticated personnel and sources.
Q4. Who is affected?
The clients of the project will be affected as the data of the clients will be exposed
leading to the fact that the clients will be immensely affected by the imposters gaining
access to the personal data. If the encryption of the data is not done in the project t then
the project gets unstable and hacking of the project gets easier.
The project manager of the project will be affected as this kind of massacre might
cost him his job. As the goodwill of the producing company will be at sake due to the faulty
decision making of the project manager.
The Willis Company who would be launching the project will suffer the maximum
loss due to the fact that the goodwill of the organization will be lost. As the Willis Company
will be the face of the project.
Q5. What are the ethical issues and their implications?
The ethical issues are as follows:
The quality of the production must be maintained (Eriksson & Kovalainen, 2015).
Irrespective of the lucrative incentives the project manager and the project team must not
compromise the quality of the project (Rendtorff, 2017).
The leadership quality of the project manager is taken into account (Wang, Cheney &
Roper, 2016). Leadership enables the project manager to lead the team with responsibility
and support the team in times of high pressure (Neog, 2017).
According to the ethics of business exposing data of any client is not done (Jennings,
2014). Without encryption of the data exposing of the data will be a common aspect in the
long term of the project (Campbell & Cowton, 2015).
Q6. What could have been done about it?
The project that is to be submitted must be encrypted before launching the project
as launching the project without encrypting it causes undue exploitation of the personal
details of the client which is unethical from the corporate transparency point of view.
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The early launch of the product program must be demolished in order to provide
stability to the project.
Q7. What are the options?
The project manager agrees to the program director for submitting the project one
month previous to the allocated time period. The project is being launched without
encryption of the data a month before which resulted in hacking of the website and the
data of the clients got exposed.
The project manager refuses to submit the project before a month of due
submission date as he thinks that in doing so the project will lack stability in it and data
might be exposed hence he did not try to convince the program director. The program
director hence suspends him from the job by putting the concern to the higher authority.
The project manager does not get convinced regarding the submission of the project
rather he tries to convince the program director and makes him understand the
consequences of submitting the project without encrypting the data. The program director
agrees to the facts and the project s submitted in the due date.
Q8. Which option is the best and why?
The option where the project manager makes the program director understand the
facts that can happen because of not encrypting the project and the program director
understands the problem and decides to launch the project in schedule with proper stability
is the best option as in all other options the company either suffers due to the schedule
overdue or the project being accessed in an unauthorized manner.
References
Eriksson, P., & Kovalainen, A. (2015). Qualitative methods in business research: A practical guide to
social research. Sage.
Rendtorff, J. D. (2017). Business ethics, philosophy of management, and theory of leadership.
In Perspectives on Philosophy of Management and Business Ethics (pp. 3-16). Springer, Cham.
Wang, Y., Cheney, G., & Roper, J. (2016). Virtue Ethics and the Practice–Institution Schema: An
Ethical Case of Excellent Business Practices. Journal of business ethics, 138(1), 67-77.
Neog, B. (2017). Business Cannot Be as Usual: Business Ethics Education in India. In Management
Education in India(pp. 127-140). Springer, Singapore.
Jennings, M. M. (2014). Business ethics: Case studies and selected readings. Cengage Learning.
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Campbell, D., & Cowton, C. J. (2015). Method issues in business ethics research: finding credible
answers to questions that matter. Business Ethics: A European Review, 24(S1).
Scenario 3: Early Launch. (2018). YouTube. Retrieved 15 March 2018, from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5M7ohdZ6qA
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