Ethical Dilemmas in Project Software Development - Case Study Example

Ethical dilemmas in project software development (Institution) (Name) (Course) (Module) (Instructor) Date of submission Introduction The modern world has registered tremendous growth in information technology whose wide use has brought to the fore the issue of ethical and moral principles. Software project developers and managers have the responsibility of observing and incorporating moral and ethical principles in software developed. The basic argument on ethics in IT tends to how best software project acknowledges the impact it has on all stakeholders. Therefore, developers have to be keen on eliminating the errors and problems that may arise due to conflict of interest between different stakeholders and interests. The major ethical issues in IT revolve around privacy, justice and sharing of information. Majority of ethical issues are covered by the law in most countries. However, some moral and ethical requirements might in be contrary to business and project interests hence a dilemma. This paper discusses the ethical and moral issues surrounding software project development and management by reviewing existing literature and discussing a few case studies. Discussion Ethical issues in software project management can be broadly classified into two; conceptual and practical. The conceptual part of the ethics basically deals with a reflection guided by the elaboration and defence of norms and values. The practical aspect is guided by the context of the ethics in terms of the ethical code of the organisation and the community. Bynum and Rogerson give weight to the practical application of ethics and value in SPM. They argue that conceptual reflection of ethics and norms are generalised and are acceptable to the wider community thus denying SPM the ethical considerations it deserves. For instance, the software engineering code of ethics and professional practice was adopted by IEEE and Computer Society and ACM to cover ethical issues by IT firms and software developers (Bynum & Rogerson 2004). The practical application of ethical consideration in SPM is best understood under the structured SPM framework. This framework recognises eight crucial steps in SPM with each step having its unique degree of ethical considerations. These are honour, honesty, bias, professional adequacy, due care, fairness, consideration of social cost and effective and efficient action (Schultz, 2006; Bynum & Rogerson 2004). The principle of honour is considered to be the umbrella ethical principle in SPM. This principle ensures that all actions pertaining to the project are beyond reproach. Another principle derived from honour is honesty. Honesty requires that the team project manager and his team remain committed to the project throughout in a professional manner (Bynum & Rogerson 2004). The third and fourth steps call for bias and professional adequacy. Bias seeks to address the issue of objectivity as opposed to subjectivity in managing the entire project. Decisions and actions must be objective while professional adequacy postulates that these decisions and actions must be carried out by qualified people. The project manager thus needs to constantly evaluate the output and proficiency of his team members as part of his ethical responsibility. A dilemma may arise given that team managers maybe unwilling to fire trusted personnel from the team. Again, it can be very hard to remain objective in the work situation since personal attributes may arise in the decision making process (Bynum & Rogerson 2004). The fifth and sixth step due care and fairness are linked to quality issues. It is generally accepted by marketing principles that organisations should produce quality products and services that not only meet customers’ value for money. This rule is not only engraved in marketing dynamics but also ethical concerns. Products and services produced must be safe to the user and other stakeholders. For instance, decision making support software should be able to analyse and use information from the industry and the market in aiding the management in making appropriate decisions (Schultz 2006). It is therefore within ethical requirements for such software developers to ensure that due care is taken in developing the product and that it is fair to the client in terms of delivering results. The seventh and eighth steps address social cost, effectiveness and efficiency. Social cost is arrived at by considering the ethical impact that the software will have on all stakeholders. By considering social cost, the project manager recognises that it is not possible to abdicate from professional responsibility and accountability. In accomplishing this, the project manager has to ensure that the goals are achieved with the least amount of resources possible (Bynum & Rogerson 2004). Mapping of the ethical principle into steps captures the overall picture of ethical issues in a product lifecycle. Nonetheless, there are two broad areas that have a high ethical dimension namely, the scope of consideration and information dissemination to the client (McManus 2005). The use of new system or software implies that some rights and interests of a wide range of stakeholders will be affected. It is imperative to consider the implications of the new system on all the stakeholders. For instance, some previously confidential information may become accessible to other people. This may affect the efficiency and usefulness of the software and even threaten its use and adaptation. Information dissemination to the client on an IT system or software links heavily with ethical considerations. Bynum and Rogerson (2004) note that some software developers might be reluctant to provide factual information on the performance of new systems as they might be tempted to ignore reporting side effects and negative implications of a new system. The authors suggest that project managers should provide factual information with non-emotive words. Typical project manager face a unique set of ethical issues in the course of managing IT projects. McManus (2005) recognises four core ethical issues that face project managers namely; temptation, ethical quandaries, criticism and professional self-regulation. The author argues that project managers are team leaders in their own right and hence answerable to the activities of the whole team. The team may be faced with difficulties such as some practical aspects of the project yet the project manager is not willing to disclose that to the client. For instance, timing is a core issue that face project developers. Managers have to be keen on the timing in order to deliver the product to the client in time in order to remain relevant to market needs and be competitive. Criticism is another problem that may face project managers. McManus (2005) says that large software organizations tend to have policies that encourage unethical behaviour in their IT employees. For instance, project managers and their team have access to confidential information on the company and its employees which they might use for the wrong purposes. Organisations need to protect such information about their employees to avoid breaching the privacy requirements which can result in legal suits. One of the major companies to undertake SPM and experience the ethical dilemmas in implementing a project is the global publishing house Taylor and Francis. The company commissioned a project titled ‘global tracking’ which is a software developed by Klopotek to organise and process information on prices and from the editorial department from all its global markets and organise the information into a single database accessible in all markets. Previously, each market such as the UK, Netherlands and US had their own databases which made global operations a hard and tedious task. The software allowed the firm to make sales forecast and aid in decision making on whether to manufacture a book or not (Klopotek n.d.). Mary MacInnes, Vice President for Editorial and Marketing, headed the implementation process and she identified a number of ethical and technical challenges. The most challenging to her and her team was the consideration of the scope of the project. She notes that the project involved replacing the old legacy systems within the editorial and marketing departments. The wide scope of the project was a daunting task and the team was tempted to let the project slip. Again, the centralisation of data into a single database implies that such internal information for an organisation is more prone to external interferences from unauthorised persons (Klopotek n.d.). A number of organisations have implemented new systems in their operations which bring with them numerous challenges. Wang and Loui (2009) observe that credit cards as used around the world and more in the developed world contravene on the privacy right of many individuals. The authors cite the case of a shopper who purchases a clothing item from a store and unaware that the garment is embedded with a radio frequency identifier (RFID). This RFDI tag is also enables anyone with an RFID scanner to evaluate the details pertaining to the clothing item such as the store it was purchased from, purchaser and the price without the authority of the owner. The same case applies to smart phones and other electronic gadgets fitted with RFDI tags that can relay personal information to unauthorised persons. While supermarkets and chain stores attain efficiency and save costs by using RDI tags, consumers are not aware of them and their privacy is infringed. This again touches on the scope of ethical considerations and a number of other issues that were overlooked in developing the system. Conclusions Many software project initiatives are carried out with minimal concerns on the ethical considerations on the users and the wider markets. Project managers are somehow more concerned about the anticipated benefits to the business operations than the impacts on all the shareholders. As shown, electronic cardholders are not fully informed about the increased risk of accessibility of their private information by third parties. It is imperative that organisations give more weight to wider scope of stakeholders and disseminate more information to all involved stakeholders right from the development phase to the implementation phase. References Bynum, T. & Rogerson, S. (2004). Computer ethics and professional responsibility. Wiley-Blackwell Klopotek (n.d.). Case Study Klopotek software implementation- Product Planning and Management (PPM). www.klopotek.de/mmo/priv/45606-WEB.pdf McManus, J (2005). Managing stakeholders in software development projects. London: Butterworth-Heinemann Schultz, R. (2006). Contemporary issues in ethics and information technology. London: Idea Group Inc Wang, J. & Loui, M. (2009). Privacy and Ethical Issues in Location-Based Tracking Systems. https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/loui/www/location.pdf Read More