PMI CAPM – Being an Ethical Project Manager

1. Adhere to Ethical Standards

When you apply for the PMP exam, you have to agree to abide by the PMI Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct. This is just something that you have to buy into. You have to agree that this is what you’re going to participate in for the most part. It’s pretty common sense. It’s pretty much if you have some ethical standards, you’ll be fine. In exams past, the ethics questions used to be its own separate domain. So you would have a set of questions just on ethics. Now PMI has dropped that domain, it’s not a separate domain.

And these ethical questions are woven in into the exam domains and to the different questions. So it won’t be quite as separate as it was in years past. But we still have to answer these ethical questions on your exam. So I’m going to walk through these very broad concepts about the PMI code of Ethics and Professional Conduct. So if you want, you can go out to PMI’s website and you can download this or you’ll see it when you go to apply for your exam. So the PMI Code of Ethics and Professional conduct. This is a PMI document. It’s part of all of your PMI certification applications, no matter which one that you’re applying for.

The CAPM, the PMP, the PMI ACP, every certification from PMI, this is part of it. And you have to agree to its terms to submit your application. And you can hop out to PMI. org and download the actual document if you like. Or you can wait till you complete your application and see it then. Some responsibilities to the profession. This is included in this document that we follow the organizational rules and policies talking about the PMI organization. So on your exam application, you have to be truthful and honest when you document your education and experience test items, that you can’t tell people exactly what was on the test. Now, we’re talking about objectives in this course. We’re talking about what you are likely to see.

But I can’t try to sneak out test questions. And that leads to the third point here, answer sheets. That the little scratch paper that you get when you go into the Prometric Testing center. You have to give that back to the people at prometric. You don’t get to keep it, you have to give it back. Now, an interesting thing that just came out just within the last, as of this recording just happened. When you go into the Prometric Testing Center, there’s a 15 minutes tutorial that you can use to learn how to use the software. It’s been encouraged that you take that 15 minutes time to jot down all your notes to create a little memory dump. Well, PMI has now said, no, that’s not acceptable, that that 15 minutes is only to be used to take the tutorial.

You can’t write any notes down until the exam timer begins. And so at Prometric now my understanding is they will not allow you to take notes in that 15 minutes window. You can’t write anything down on your scratch paper until the exam timer starts. So that’s kind of disappointing, but that’s what PMI says and that’s what we will abide to. So this will be another responsibility of the profession and something to be aware of as you go in to pass your exam.

We also have to be truthful and honest when we talk about our continuing certification. So reporting PDUs, my company is a PMI registered education provider. If I host a seminar or I have a class like this online, I will share what the code is. That code is what you need to claim the course as your PDU. So this is after you’re a PMP. So what they’re talking about here, because it’s self reporting. Bob goes to one of my classes and he gets the code to claim five PDUs. Well, he takes that code and he gives it to his buddies. He shares it online.

Those people did not take the class, but they’re going into the continuing ed system on PMI site and claiming the code as if they did. So they are breaking the code of ethics even though it’s self reporting and it’s very unlikely that they’re going to get caught. I mean, they could get caught. PMI could ask me, do I have records of these people attending the course? And I would say, no, they didn’t. And then they would be in a lot of trouble with PMI. My point being that you have to be honest and ethical in all aspects when dealing with PMI, even after you’re a PMP, which is the next point here, that we have responsibility as well to the profession as being a project management professional.

And that if we see a breach of ethics, you have to have clear and factual evidence. So PMI doesn’t want us to call them and to submit an ethics claim at every shadow or what may be a small conflict of interest. We got to have real proof. So if someone says, hey, I got real test questions, that’s not real proof. So we want clear and factual evidence when we report ethical violations to PMI and then we cooperate with PMI on their queries and we disclose the appearance of conflict of interest. So this is talking about if I’m a decision maker on your projects, if I’m your manager on this project, and then our roles reverse, now I’m going to be a team member for you and we both apply to PMI, that could look a little funny, like we’re covering for each other.

It might be completely fine and ethical, but we need clear and factual evidence and to disclose the appearance of our conflict of interest when you have an ethical claim. I actually have had made a claim against another individual. They did some plagiarism basically in one of my books. And so I made a claim. And so when this went through the process, I had to fill out a form and an affidavit that this was all true, send in all the evidence, then they confirmed it. And so there’s a whole process then that they go through before they even address the individual you’re making a claim against. That party can respond. And yes, there was an attorney involved. So it’s not an easy thing to just say this person cheated or this person, you know, wasn’t ethical.

I mean, you, you have to plead your case and explain your position as to why you have this claim on ethics against another individual. We also have some ethics we have to follow in our professional practice. So truth in advertising and sales, you can’t claim that you’ve been in business 20 years if you’ve only been doing it for three. Of course, that’s unethical. We have to comply with the laws, the regulations and the ethical standards of the country where the project is being held. So that’s very important there. So the laws, regulations and the ethical standards as part of a BMP or a member of PMI, the intellectual property, we respect the intellectual property of others. And we also disperse this code that we want to abide by the code.

We want other project managers to live up to the same code of ethics. As a project manager, we have responsibility to customers and to the public that we’re truthful in our experience, that we’re also truthful in our estimating. And I use this idea of sandbagging here that’s a term to describe where we’ve got a vendor and they say, oh, I can come in and do this work and it’s going to cost $25,000. And they win the bid because they had a pretty reasonable price.

Well, then they get into the project and they get a little ways into it where we have spent money and time and we’re moving closer to a deadline. And then they say, oh, I didn’t realize you wanted all this stuff. It’s going to be more like $40,000. So they sandbagged it, they went very low, and then now later they drop it in at what the real price is. So that’s unethical. When we have a buyer and a seller, the buyer is really in charge that we’re doing what they want according to the terms of the contract. When we have the contract, I also have some confidentiality, some privity that I don’t take that information or information from that organization and run out and share it with their competition or other vendors.

So I have confidentiality in that relationship between the buyer and the seller. As a project manager, we also have responsibility to customers and to the public that we want to avoid conflict of interest. When there’s an opportunity for conflict of interest, I take that decision away and give it to someone else, or I don’t do it. I avoid the conflict of interest. We also have to refrain from accepting inappropriate compensation. Especially you probably already experience this if you’re in a government entity, but it’s also true in a lot of companies, even the appearance of impropriety, that we have to refrain from accepting inappropriate compensation. And sometimes it can be very innocent. I had a client that a project I was consulting on, and my manager said, oh, I’d like to be a PMP. And I said, hey, here’s a free pass to my class. Come on, I’d love for you to get your PMP.

And this person said, I can’t, because I can’t accept anything that’s worth more than X amount of dollars. So even though it was totally innocent and I was just one, be friendly and help this person, it would have been an appearance of impropriety. And she was right. So we shouldn’t do that. So we really have to understand, even if we’re just trying to be friendly and helpful, that we have to adhere to the laws, the regulations, avoiding the conflict of interest. So we have a responsibility to our customers and to the public. We don’t want anything to come back and haunt us, even if it was an innocent, friendly, I’ll buy you dinner or whatever, we always have to follow the rules of the organization. Now, a few extras here about the code of conduct.

The first one is called the superior wharf hypotheses. This means that it’s a hypothesis that says the language that you speak affects how you think. So a person that is fluent in German, that’s their native tongue may think differently than a person that speaks English, they might come to the same results, but the process of how they get there is different. That’s a hypothesis.

So that’s the superior morph hypotheses. Culture shock is that initial reaction when you go to a foreign environment. If you’ve never been to Hong Kong before and you’re going to go to Hong Kong, you might be going to really have some culture shock, especially if you’re from Des Moines, Iowa, or something, just like that person from Hong Kong. If they come to Des Moines, Iowa, they might have culture shock. So it’s that initial reaction, that unease that you feel when you’re going to go to a foreign environment. So by being aware of that, I should do a little research, do a little bit of homework, know what to anticipate when I go to that foreign environment so that I don’t experience that culture shock.

The last term you want to know here is ethnocentrism. This is where I measure other people’s culture by my own. So if I were to travel to, you know, somewhere in South America, I might think, oh, they’re why are they doing that? And this is really unusual. It’s so much nicer the way I do it that’s measuring their culture. By mine, usually you’re putting down other cultures, you don’t like the way they do it because it’s not the way you do it.

And that’s basically disrespectful of their culture. The same thing is true. It could be the opposite, I should say. So if I were to go to Paris, and I love Paris, great city, beautiful city. So I go to Paris, I might think, they’re so much more sophisticated here, and I feel so backwards, and the way we do it is weird. So I’m putting down my culture by others where I might say, oh, I value these Parisians and how they live, and then I put down how we live.

So it’s that anytime that you’re measuring other people’s culture, for better or for worse, against your own, that’s ethnocentrism. Usually, though, it’s putting it down. All right, a few exam tips for you here. When it comes to these ethical questions, you always have to follow the laws of the country where the project is taking place. Laws of the country are number one. Number two, your company policies. So if your company says you cannot accept a gift worth more than $50, you can’t take it. You can’t even, like, pretend to take it and give it back later.

Can’t take it, because that would be the appearance of impropriety. And then you follow the customs of the country that you’re operating in. So you have to do some research and understand what those customs are. If the customs are in conflict with your company policy, sorry, you have to do the company policy first. So, for example, I’ve been to some places in the world where we go out at lunchtime, and we’re going to have a beer at lunch. All right? So that’s the customist. What they did in this environment, company policy, though, was you couldn’t drink alcohol while you’re on the job, so couldn’t have a beer because the company policy was, no, you’re not drinking alcohol in the job. And I would take a nap anyway in the afternoon if I had a beer.

So even though the custom was no big deal, have a beer. You’re in our town, and this is where we’re going to have a beer at lunch. I had a beer after work, but not during work. So the company policies override the customs. The fourth thing here is your own personal ethics. If you feel unethical, you feel dirty, you feel like it’s not right, then it probably isn’t. So your ethics, if you don’t know what to do, if you can’t figure it out, law of the country, then your policies, then customs and ethics, then you have to say, what would an angel do here? What would someone like Joe do here? All right, so you’d be an angel.

So you think about the most restrictive, the most conservative thing you could do in that scenario. But I have a feeling you’ll do just fine. All right, good job. This is the end of our conversation about the PMI code of ethics. A lot of information in this. I encourage you to hop out to PMI. org and download this document. It’s not an easy read, but it’s not the worst thing in the world either. But you’ll have to read it and agree to it anyway when you accept the code of ethics as part of your PMP application. All right, good job. A few more things and we’re going to be done in here.

So you’re making great progress. We have covered the whole scope of the exam at this point, so you’ve done a great job. A few more things to talk about and then we’ll be done. So I’ll see you in the next lecture.