Deadline And The Project Manager Assessment Answer

Q3. What are the issues(non-ethical)?

The main issue of the project is the high possibility of the developers to present a stable version of the software on time for the client. The efforts of the developers are divided among the three versions of the software and the progress is slow. The possibility of the time completion is also low at the current rate of progress. It is clear that all three versions cannot be developed to make stable software are nil, according to the senior developer (O’Regan, 2017). While the developer team is competent in coding their quality assurance aspect is weak and they cannot ensure the stability of the software within the available timeframe. Thus, the issues of the case are divided into three aspects one of which is on-time delivery and the others are quality issues based on the stability of the software and overall competency of the project developer team. 

Q4. Who is affected?

The affected party in this ethical dilemma is the project manager and the client along with the developer team whose directions are too diverse that resulted in high workload and low efficiency of the project progress. In the given situation, the main affected party is the project team and their pressure affects the project manager as his decision-making capabilities are directly responsible for the project completion and on time delivery of a stable software to the client on deadline. The client is affected as they do not get the software on time and this might result in loss of profit and weakening of the competitive positioning of the client in their respective market. This also has the potential to affect the reputation of the software-developing firm, as they are unable to deliver a quality product to the client on time that resulted in the financial loss for the client and caused a breach in the contract that would affect the developer firm’s reputation negatively (Naik & Tripathy, 2011).

Q5. What are the ethical issues and their implications?

The main ethical issue in this discussion is the balancing between the quality of the software developed and the variations for the clients to choose from and the on-time delivery of the software only one of which can be achieved under the presented circumstances. One implication of the ethical issue is the inability of the company to deliver the software on time that might make the developing company breach the contract with the client. However, if the current schedule and the three versions of the software are to be kept there would be additional resource requirements that might exceed the budget, which in the scenario is a non-issue as the additional resources are unavailable. If the current situation continues the client would have quality issues with the software as it would not be free of the bug as there is not enough time or resources for testing and the result would be a subpar quality product. 

Q6. What can be done about it?

The only to achieve the outcome that is acceptable to both the developing company and the client company is the delivery of the software on time and make sure it is of acceptable quality as per the specification of the purpose of the usage by the client. Therefore, the possible courses of action might be additional resource allocation or extension of the deadline by understanding both of which would affect the profit and reputation of the company accordingly. 

Q7. What are the options?

The available options for the company are the following
• Allocate more resources to the project to ensure completion of the project in time without changing the current course of action
• Concentrate on the most promising version and the concentrate the human resources on the development of the one version and quality assurance that would help in the timely delivery
• Make provisions for an extension to the client which would affect the company reputation and profit both.

Q8. Which option is the best and why?

The option of concentrating the effort and resources on one of the versions of the software is the best approach under the circumstances that would allow the company to retain its profit level while giving an acceptable result of moderate quality to the client. The software would be stable and have the basic functionality, which would satisfy the clients and allow the completion of the deadline without further straining the resources of the organization. This would also help preserve the workspace environment and prevent any conflict and ensure that there is no breach of contract from both the quality and time boundaries (Kerzner & Kerzner, 2017). The program while basic would have all the requested functionality to a degree and the client and the management would be satisfied without putting strain the developer team or the organizational budget.

References

O’Regan, G. (2017). Software Quality Assurance. In Concise Guide to Software Engineering (pp. 131-138). Springer, Cham.
Naik, K., & Tripathy, P. (2011). Software testing and quality assurance: theory and practice. John Wiley & Sons.
Kerzner, H., & Kerzner, H. R. (2017). Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons