Ethical Dilemma in Software Development

The assignment requires students to analyze a scenario where a software developer is faced with an ethical dilemma - being pressurized to release untested software. Using the Doing Ethics Technique, the student must identify the facts and issues in the scenario, consider different options for resolving the situation, and ultimately choose the most ethical course of action.

Running head: DOING ETHICS TECHNIQUE – VIDEO 4
Doing Ethics Technique – Video 4
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Scenario: Video four..................................................................................................................2
What is going on?...................................................................................................................2
What are the facts?.................................................................................................................3
What are the issues?...............................................................................................................3
What are the ethical issues and implications?........................................................................4
Who is affected?.....................................................................................................................4
What can be done about it?....................................................................................................4
What options are there?..........................................................................................................5
Which option is best and why?..............................................................................................5
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................5
Reference....................................................................................................................................7

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Introduction
Ethical conduct is one of the most important aspects of Information and
Communication Technology. The way any work is done in the ICT field, should always abide
by the codes of conduct and laws. However, the ethics and laws could be analysed by the
Doing Ethics Technique in any given scenario (McDermid, 2015). This is a process by which
any questionable scenario can be analysed for ethical evaluation through a series of eight
questions. Supposedly, these questions would gradually help an individual to reach an ethical
solution. The supposed ethical behaviour of the ICT professional would be evaluated with the
help of Doing Ethics Technique in the following report as well.
Scenario: Video four
The scenario in this video depicts an incident about a project manager and a developer
in an organization. It is found that the project manager suddenly asks the developer to make
the software live to the clients within the next two days. The developer informs the project
manager that the software has not yet been tested to make it live to the clients since one of the
project team member has been sick. This resulted in the project to go behind schedule.
However, the project manager informs that he has already promised the client about the
immediate go-live and he cannot take his word back. He also informs the developer that he
needs to make the go-live happen immediately no matter what.
What is going on?
In the scenario, it could be seen that the developer had been on his assigned work
when suddenly the project manager had informed about the software to go live to the clients
within the next few days (Lurie & Mark, 2016). The project manager had not asked about the
progress of the project to the developer and had promised the client about the delivery of the

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work even without having the information if the software was tested or not. Even after
informing him that the software has not been tested, he ordered the developer to do whatever
possible to deliver the software on the promised time. He was indifferent of the fact that the
software has not been tested.
What are the facts?
The case scenario depicts that the organization is a SaaS company. This means that
the company provides Software as a Service. These companies deliver software to clients,
prepared as per their requirements (Karim, Al Ammar & Aziz, 2017). However, before
delivering the software, it is required to test it as well. Testing ensures perfection of the
software since it determines any errors during runtime. It has been found in the case scenario
that to deliver the software on the proposed time to the clients, the project manager even
considered making the software live without testing.
What are the issues?
There are a number of issues in the case scenario in question. These could be listed as
follows:
 The project manager promised the client about delivery of the software before
consulting with the developer about the progress of the project.
 The project manager informed the developer that the software has to go live
on the date promised to the client even if the software is not tested.
 The developer is ordered by the project manager to go to any extent to make
the software go live on the promised date that he has offered to the client
refusing to listen to the developer.

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What are the ethical issues and implications?
There are several ethical issues in the given questionable scenario. They all imply to
the fact that what the project manager is imposing upon the developer is unethical according
to the ICT codes of ethics and laws (Al-Saggaf, Burmeister & Weckert, 2015). A project
manager is supposed to keep a close vigilance on the progress of a task. It was also the
project manager’s duty to check for the absentee team member and infiltrate an alternative.
Promising to deliver the software even without knowing the progress was another ethical
issue detected in the scenario. Again, when the developer informed that the software has not
yet been tested, he forced the developer to make the project go live anyhow.
Who is affected?
The ethical issues that the case scenario illustrates could affect a number of people in
the process. For the time being, the developer would face the enormous ethical dilemma
about whether to deliver the task without testing or not. If the software is made live without
testing, it would surely fail in delivering the required task it is supposed to as without testing
the errors would be undetected. The undetected errors have a possibility to fail the software
(Becker et al., 2015). This would affect the organization’s reputation as well as all the
stakeholders associated with the organization.
What can be done about it?
The possible ways the issue can be resolved is by ethically asking for extension of the
project date to the client so that the software would be properly tested and then delivered
(Kadoda, 2015). The project manager should be made to understand the perils of making
software go live without testing. This should be done so that the manager could contact the
client and pass on the message.

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What options are there?
According to the scenario, there is a possibility of three options that could occur in
this scenario (Jones, 2016). These are listed as follows:
 Firstly, the developer could make the software go live anyhow without testing
it.
 Secondly, the developer could resign so that he does not have to commit any
unethical measures being pressurised by his project manager.
 Thirdly, the developer can make amends with the project manager to make
him understand the consequences of making the software go live without
testing and how unethical it would be according to the ICT code of laws and
ethics.
Which option is best and why?
Taking the entire scenario into consideration and according to the ICT code of ethics
and laws it could be said that the best possible option to resolve the issue is the third option.
This is because, the first option would directly affect the company reputation as there is
chances of the software failing (Melo & de Sousa, 2017). In addition, resigning from the job
also may harm the career of the developer. However, the third option may harm the finances
of the company for extending the project over the tentative date, still would be ethical
according to the ICT code of laws. This way all issues could be solved ethically.
Conclusion
Therefore, it could be concluded from the above case scenario analysis with Doing
Ethics Technique that asking these eight questions leads into acquiring an ethical solution for
any situation. In this case as well, when the developer had fallen into a situation consisting of

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a severe ethical dilemma, in the end the Doing Ethics Technique offered a feasible solution to
the issue. The first four questions represented the facts and issues in the scenario, whereas,
the last four questions focused mostly on the behaviour of the developer, which helped in
acquiring the best possible ethical solution to the dilemma in the scenario.

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Reference
Al-Saggaf, Y., Burmeister, O., & Weckert, J. (2015). Reasons behind unethical behaviour in
the Australian ICT workplace: An empirical investigation. Journal of Information,
Communication and Ethics in Society, 13(3/4), 235-255.
Becker, C., Chitchyan, R., Duboc, L., Easterbrook, S., Penzenstadler, B., Seyff, N., &
Venters, C. C. (2015, May). Sustainability design and software: The karlskrona
manifesto. In Software Engineering (ICSE), 2015 IEEE/ACM 37th IEEE International
Conference on (Vol. 2, pp. 467-476). IEEE.
Jones, S. (2016). Doing the right thing: computer ethics pedagogy revisited. Journal of
Information, Communication and Ethics in Society, 14(1), 33-48.
Kadoda, G. (2015). Software Engineering Ethics Education: Incorporating Critical
Pedagogy. Contemporary Ethical Issues in Engineering, 228.
Karim, N. S. A., Al Ammar, F., & Aziz, R. (2017, September). Ethical Software: Integrating
Code of Ethics into Software Development Life Cycle. In Computer and Applications
(ICCA), 2017 International Conference on (pp. 290-298). IEEE.
Lurie, Y., & Mark, S. (2016). Professional Ethics of Software Engineers: An Ethical
Framework. Science and engineering ethics, 22(2), 417-434.
McDermid, D. (2015). Ethics in ICT: an Australian perspective. Pearson Higher Education
AU.
Melo, C. D. O., & de Sousa, T. C. (2017, May). Reflections on cyberethics education for
millennial software engineers. In Software Engineering Curricula for Millennials
(SECM), 2017 IEEE/ACM 1st International Workshop on (pp. 40-46). IEEE.