2. What is Project Management?
Software project management is the
collection of techniques used to develop
computer systems and deliver various types of
software products.
This developing discipline traditionally includes
technical issues such as:
- the choice of software development model, -
- how to estimate project size and schedule, -
- how to insure safety, what resources to reuse
and which programming environment to use for
the development.
3. The discipline also includes management issues
such as:
- when to train personal,
- what are the risks to the project success,
- and how to keep the project on schedule.
These choices are then embodied in a software
project management plan.
None of the traditional software project
management materials address the ethical issues
that arise because of the choices made during
software development.
4.
5. Effective software project management is
a vital ingredient in achieving a successful
outcome.
The objectives for the project need to be
agreed at the outset.
In deciding the objectives their
implications need to be considered, in
terms of the actual outputs and the
impact these outputs will have.
There is also a need to consider the
impact of the development process itself.
6. The project team
The project team should be well briefed on
these issues and have the opportunity to
debate them fully to establish its own
conclusions.
The team should consider all the implications
of the plan, including ethical ones. It may
need to call on additional resources from
inside and outside the organisation.
If the team members are unprepared, they
will lack direction and perform poorly.
7. Eight Ethical Principles
Honour - Is the action considered beyond
reproach?
Honesty - Will the action violate any
explicit or implicit agreement or trust?
Bias - Are there any external
considerations that may bias the action
to be taken?
Professional adequacy - Is the action
within the limits of capability?
8. Due care - Is the action to be exposed to
the best possible quality assurance
standards?
Fairness - Are all stakeholder's views
considered with regard to the action?
Consideration of social cost - Is the
appropriate accountability and
responsibility accepted with respect to
this action?
Effective and efficient action Is the action
suitable, given the objectives set, and is it
to be completed using the least
expenditure of resources?
9. The Ten Steps of Structured Project
Management
Step Description
1. Visualise what the goal is
2. Make a list of the jobs that need to be done
3. Ensure there is one leader
4. Assign people to jobs
5. Manage expectations, allow a margin of error
and have a fallback position
6. Use an appropriate leadership style
7. Know what is going on
8. Tell people what is going on
9. Repeat Step 1 through 8 until Step 10 can be
achieved
10. Realise the project goal
10. Conclusion
Just as producing software of high quality should be
second nature to the software engineer so should
producing software that is ethically sensitive.
The project management process for software
development must accommodate an ethical perspective.
The major criticism of current practice is that any ethical
consideration tends to be implicit rather than explicit which
has a tendency to devalue the importance of the ethical
dimension.
By using ethical principles, identifying of ethical hotspots
and using SoDIS it is possible to ensure that the key ethical
issues are properly addressed as an integral part of the
software development process.
Quite simply, project management should be guided by a
sense of justice, a sense of equal distributions of benefits
and burdens and a sense of equal opportunity.
In this way software development project management will
become ethically aligned.
