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Integrating Ethics Into A Project Management Course
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Globig, James E. |
| Copyright Year | 2002 |
| Abstract | In today’s increasingly technical society, constant pressure exists to provide the engineering student with a comprehensive four-year curriculum that devotes sufficient attention to the traditional disciplines of the profession while at the same time anticipates areas of developing interest. As if this continued monitoring and refinement of the technical curriculum were not enough, because of the frequently competing demands placed on the new engineer in the world of commerce and government, attention must also be paid in the course curriculum to the development of non-technical skills. These non-technical skills must include not only those required to make the engineer more comfortable in the areas of sophisticated written and oral communication but should also strive to have the engineer openly and confidently evaluate ideas and products with an eye to the overall ethics of any given situation. In the era of brutal international competition, many product-producing companies have compromised ethical considerations so that, at any critical juncture in decision-making, the paramount question to be answered by the engineer has become “Is it legal?” as opposed to “Is it ethical?” This paper describes an approach to provide students in a Project Management course with the knowledge of a worldwide ethic and how to apply that ethic in engineering projects. INTRODUCTION There is constant pressure to provide a four-year engineering curriculum with the breadth of knowledge students require as a basis for a successful career. In order to develop the nontechnical skills required for success (and required by ABET) along with an increasing technical requirement, it has been necessary to integrate the non-technical knowledge and skills development into our technical curriculum. The vast majority of the early and present day contributions in the ethics area emanate from civil engineering, chemical engineering and bioengineering. Not surprisingly, these fields can and do have significant impact on the quality and sacredness of human life. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the contribution to engineering ethics addresses the engineer only as a designer affecting the sacredness of human life. In the era of brutal international competition, however, many “lean” product-producing companies have expanded the role of project manager to include functions that were previously considered outside of the typical engineering functions. In addition, many companies have compromised ethical considerations so that, at any critical juncture in decision-making, the paramount question to be answered by the engineer has become “Is it legal?” as opposed to “Is it ethical?” Instead of confronting the ethical dilemmas directly, P ge 790.1 “Proceedings of the 2002 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright ” 2002, American Society for Engineering Education” today’s engineer, with an expanded role in the corporate organization, now looks implicitly to other disciplines (management, finance, law) for guidance and, at times, to convince oneself that there are "acceptable" reasons for giving less than full consideration to potential ethical concerns when planning projects, managing human resources, and specifying products. This paper describes an approach to integrating ethics into a Project Management course. First, the paper outlines the expanded responsibilities of today’s Project Manager as it is taught in a Project Management course. Then, an engaging approach to introducing ethics at the beginning of the course and developing the ethical concepts into a “capstone” discussion of a global ethic is described. As the course progresses through the Project Management outline, adding depth to each responsibility of the Project Manager, this paper identifies some selected case studies that not only lend themselves to the application of a Project Management function but also contain ethical considerations whenever possible. Also, whenever appropriate, case studies are selected from current events in order to reinforce the value of the application project management and ethics knowledge to the real world. PROJECT MANAGEMENT COURSE CONTENT Project Management is a critical function, particularly in the product -producing sector. This is one of the few functions that, if done well, can make a good project a great one and, if not done well, can cause what could be a great project to fail miserably. To add even more responsibility to the project manager, many companies in our lean global economy either include the role of personnel manager into the Project Manager function or combine the project management, personnel management and technology management roles into an Engineering Management function. With minor differences among various texts , the role of project manager has been further expanded to include the following nine responsibilities: 1. Problem Identification is the genesis for a project where either a problem or an opportunity is identified and assigned to the project manager to evaluate. 2. Project Definition – further defines the problem by creating a Concept Specification with sufficient detail to create a Project Plan 3. Project Planning – is the most critical responsibility of the project manager. The project plan incorporates a complete functional specification; a detailed schedule documenting the time required for each task, the resources required to perform the task, and when the task is to be performed in relation to other tasks; a cost estimate of the personnel and materials required to complete the project; and finally a financial analysis. Each component of the Project Plan is individually addressed and developed further in the course: a. Functional Specification b. Task identification (Work Breakdown Structure) c. Risk analysis d. Personnel allocation into a Cross Functional Team e. Detailed time estimation for each task f. Schedule creation reflecting the principles of concurrent engineering g. Cost estimation incorporating both the cost of the personnel and the cost of the materials to deliver the final product P ge 790.2 “Proceedings of the 2002 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright ” 2002, American Society for Engineering Education” h. Financial and other benefits of the completed product i. Product pricing ii. Product / production forecast over multiple years iii. Calculation of the net present value, payback or other financial metrics. 4. Project Selection and Approval – Typically, the completed project plan, utilizing all the available information and resulting in a “best estimate”, is presented to the management team (along with others) for their approval and subsequent budget and official resource allocation. 5. Personnel Management Many project management functions now include personnel management responsibilities because of the Cross Functional nature of many of today’s development teams. These responsibilities include staffing (hiring and firing), performance evaluations, and often compensation determinat ion. 6. Intellectual Property Search Once the project is approved and relevant detailed design has been completed, patent, trademark and copyright searches should be conducted in order to avoid intellectual property infringement. 7. Project Tracking, Reporting and Evaluation –As work commences, it is the project manager’s responsibility to track the actual progress and expenditure against the plan, report on the progress, and evaluate how to improve the performance of the project team. 8. Project Control – The project manager must continuously resolve any personnel or resource issues and remove any other impediments to the plan. If it becomes clear that the original plan cannot be achieved, then it is the project managers responsibility to communicate the functional deficiency, cost overrun, or schedule overrun to upper management and then develop and document a new plan which remedies the problem and establishes a revised set of goals, if necessary. 9. Project Termination – Finally, it is the project manager’s responsibility to de-allocate the resources as tasks are completed as the project nears release. The de-allocation of personnel should include the project manager’s assistance in finding each team member their next assignment. Before release, the project manager must be sure that all documentation is archived properly and all remaining issues are resolved to the satisfaction of the stakeholders. A release meeting is scheduled to officially release the product and document follow-up activities followed by a celebration. At the beginning of the Project Management course, one to two class periods are set aside to discuss ethics both from an engineering / project management perspective and a personal perspective. Then the course introduces the nine Project Management functions and, for the remainder of the semester, expands upon each function and their sub-functions. As the course progresses, cases are selected for analysis not just for their project management content, but for their ethical content as well. |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | https://peer.asee.org/integrating-ethics-into-a-project-management-course.pdf |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
