Ethics Homework
Given Situation
Bob, your manager, is CEO and director of the RED company. Patricia, Phil, and you have been assigned as team leads for three inter-related (similar talents) groups. The RED company has an opportunity to win a $19M foundation funding if it is successful in completing and submitting an entry into the Interactive Bio-Ergonomic Symposium in Cleveland within the next 45 days. The only other known competitor is the BLUE company. Patricia's team massages and compiles data, creates statistics, and generates charts. Ernie's team generates actual models based on the client's input data, and normalized costs based on the clients input. Your team is responsible for the public interface. That is, your team will design the GUI, all meta keys, scripts, and any APIs needed to talk to Ernie's and Patricia's applications. From the most recent status meeting with Bob, it was noted that Ernie was on track, Patricia was actually ahead of schedule, and you were lagging behind. You promised Bob that your team would be on target so that the RED company could submit it's entry within the time allotted. You assured Bob that failure is not an option. What you didn't tell Bob was that you and your four other team members were already working 50-60 hours per week. In addition, you find out that Troy, a programmer, has been "moonlighting" his talents with another small business. (he really needs the money!). Though he is an excellent programmer, his productivity has noticeably decreased. Susan is privy of Troy's productivity and has helped him on occasion, but she cannot afford to trade her home life with husband and children to cover for Troy. anyway, she is a PHP programmer; Troy's expertise is in HTML and CPP. Andy and Shanetta have strengths in graphics design. andy is going through a divorce and has to balance legal issues with work. He is just short of obnoxious, but is smart. His legal issues should be completed within a month or so. Shanetta has marketing experience, and, sometimes, upon Bob's request, acts as the RED company's PR person. She is young and talented, though, and if pushed too hard, would leave the RED company in a heartbeat. You have some experience in all of the technical areas, and have done a good job filling in where needed in addition to your assigned script writing task. You are already working extra hours. Lastly, you and your teammates are friends. Drawing from some of the ideas presented in the ethics class and your own experiences and professionalism,please answer the question "What are you going to do?" Write in essay form what you think is a professional, ethical, viable solution for your team's success.
My Solution
The central problem that is causing the drop in productivity is the issues in the team’s individual lives, especially Troy and Andy. Troy is working for other companies on the side, cutting his productivity in half, while Andy is swamped by legal matters. The first thing I would do would be to inform my manager about this issue. I would not purposely blame the slow progress on my coworkers. Instead, a more appropriate approach would be to inform Bob and to change the conversation to finding solutions. Troy should not be diverging from his work here, but it is too late to replace him. Perhaps another HTML specialist could come and help Troy, or perhaps issue an ultimatum for him to focus all his efforts onto the project at hand. Taking other members of the company into the team would be a difficult suit to bring to Bob, and Troy’s actions would go unpunished. A better decision would be to confront Troy and start a conversation about why he feels he has to find work on the side. Perhaps we could consider a raise to incentivise his work, or maybe he would be willing to focus for the next month or so. The other problem in the team is Andy. His legal activities suck up a lot of his time and energy, yet the team has to work with it. The legal proceedings cannot be bypassed and replacing him during this vulnerable time would not be ethical. Once again, informing the manager, Bob, about the situation and to request additional help would be my first step. Perhaps additional resources could be diverted, at least until his legal issues are finalized. The other two members of the team, Susan and Shanetta, are both very hardworking. Susan is very involved with her family, but that shouldn’t be an issue once she doesn’t have to spend a majority of her time making up for Troy. Shanetta is a wonderful asset to the company, but she may leave if pushed too hard. Shanetta leaving would be a terrible blow to our progress, possibly an unrecoverable fall. I would focus time on making sure Shanetta feels like this team is a good place to be.