Professional Ethics in Innovation Projects

Professional ethics define the values, guidelines, and norms for a specific profession. These norms are developed to help establish a consistent behaviour or standard for professionals working within a specific subject matter area and are updated as best practices, technologies, and research insights evolve.

DOMAINS

Confirming, description, and identifying best practices for implementing professional ethics involve consideration of the following domain areas:

Industry

Professional ethics are specific to an industry, subject matter, tools used, and goals pursued. Due to their complexity, these norms are often described at a high level which requires each professional to adapt and implement based on changing circumstances.

Judgment

Case examples and experience further inform the professional’s judgment. Tested by the constraints and limitations of each business situation, the professional is constantly challenged to adhere to these professional ethics despite available shortcuts, paths of least resistance, or opportunities that both benefit the professional but undermine their ethics.

Goals

Professional ethics help evaluate what goals can be supported, what strategies or tools can be used, and the processes that can be considered. As barriers are encountered, these professional ethics help maintain focus on the project/ops goals despite the inconvenience to self.

These norms also help the professional to:

• Evaluate whether a project should be supported (or if it is feasible),
• Whether the skills or resources available (particularly as pertaining to the professional) are adequate to deliver the project per specification, &
• How to best support the project (based on norms, evidence-based practices, and current research)

There are thus times when the professional is required to withdraw from a project due to conflicts of interest or inability to support a project further (resources, KSA’s, or value congruence, etc.).  This professional practice, despite being supported by the individual’s professional ethics, can be a source of conflict for company’s who wish to pursue a project/strategy that is in-congruent with the professional’s ethics.

Making one’s professional ethics and standards clear at the beginning of project negotiations can help avoid some of these awkward moments as well as structure the process used to resolve them.

Professional ethics also help establish expectations regarding what standards will be used, how relationships will be managed, conflicts will be resolved, and priorities will be evaluated. These norms also help to evaluate priorities, resolve conflicts, and sustain goal focus and alignment as the environment, resources, and performance momentum change.

INNOVATE VANCOUVER’S PROFESSIONAL CODE OF CONDUCT

The following represent Innovate Vancouver’s professional ethics. These are used to explain the guidelines for the following areas:

• Confidentiality
• Duty of Care
• Conflict of Interest
• Fees
• Payment
• Intellectual Property & Moral Rights
• Quality Assurance
• Professional Conduct
• Equality & Discrimination
• Code of Conduct  

STATEMENT

The following outlines the guidelines and principles by which consultants of Innovate Vancouver are
professionally bound to follow.

Confidentiality

We are committed to maintaining the highest degree of integrity in all our dealings with potential,
current and past clients, both in terms of normal commercial confidentiality and the protection of all
personal information received in the course of providing the business services concerned. We
extend the same standards to all our customers, suppliers and associates.

Ethics

We always conduct our own services honestly and honourably, and expect our clients and suppliers
to do the same. Our advice, strategic assistance and the methods imparted through our training,
take proper account of ethical considerations, together with the protection and enhancement of the
moral position of our clients and suppliers.

Duty of care

Our actions and advice will always conform to relevant law, and we believe that all businesses and
organizations, including this consultancy, should avoid causing any adverse effect on the human
rights of people in the organizations we deal with, the local and wider environments, and the wellbeing
of society at large.

Conflict of interest

Due to the sensitive nature of our particular consultancy services, we will not provide a service to a
direct competitor of a client and we generally try to avoid any dealings with competitor companies
even after the cessation of services to a client.

Contracts

Our contract will usually be in the form of a detailed proposal, including aims, activities, costs,
timescales, and deliverables. The quality of our service and the value of our support provide the only
true basis for continuity. We always try to meet our clients’ contractual requirements, and particularly
for situations where an external funding provider requires more official parameters and controls.

Fees

Our fees are always competitive for what we provide, which is high quality, tailored, specialized service. As such we do not generally offer arbitrary discounts; generally, a reduction in price is only enabled by reducing the level or extent of services to be delivered. That said, we always try to propose solutions which accommodate our clients’ available budgets and timescales. Wherever possible we agree our fees and basis of charges clearly in advance, so that we and our clients can plan reliably for what lies ahead, and how it is to be achieved and financially justified.

Payment

We aim to be as flexible as possible in the way that our services our charged. Some clients prefer
fixed project fees; others are happier with retainers, and we try to fit in with what will be best for the
client. We make no attempt to charge interest on late payments, so we expect payments to be made
when agreed.

Intellectual property and moral rights

We retain the moral rights in, and ownership of, all intellectual property that we create unless agreed
otherwise in advance with our clients. In return, we respect the moral and intellectual copyright
vested in our clients’ intellectual property.

Quality assurance

We maintain the quality of what we do through constant ongoing review with our clients, of all aims,
activities, outcomes and the cost-effectiveness of every activity. We encourage regular review
meetings and provide regular progress reports.

Professional conduct

We conduct all of our activities professionally and with integrity. We take great care to be completely
objective in our judgment and any recommendations that we give so that issues are never
influenced by anything other than the best and proper interests of our clients.

Equality and discrimination

We always strive to be fair and objective in our advice and actions, and we are never influenced in
our decisions, actions or recommendations by issues of gender, race, creed, colour, age or personal
disability.

PROFESSIONAL JUDGMENT

Professional ethics and professional judgment are thus permanently intertwined. Contractors and consultants, for example, are required to following the professional practice ethics relevant to their industry, license, and area of work. These are particularly emphasized as the magnitude of the project’s impact increases (which also considers the impact of possible risks).

Failure to follow these ethics (which are informed by current research and established evidence-based practices for a given area) creates opportunities for litigation. This is particularly the case when projects that fail to deliver specifications.

Project management best practices are often used to make sure that the strategies and resources deployed follow the exact specifications, an are authorized by, the project sponsor. The initiation and planning stages of the project (PMBOK, 2016) are used to define the project specifications, requirements, and goals in detail with the execution, monitoring & closing phases supporting specification adherence and quality assurance mechanisms.

THE AGILE MANIFESTO

The agile manifesto (when relevant) provides additional clarification regarding the processes, relationships, and tools used for projects in agile environments.

We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it. Through this work we have come to value:

• Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
• Working software over comprehensive documentation
• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
• Responding to change over following a plan

That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more.

Source: AgileManifesto.org

THE INNOVATION STACK

An innovation professional ethics, if drafted, would need to consider the dynamics and interdependency of the innovation stack. This includes the following:

• Society
• Industry 
• Software
• Technology
• Strategic Model/ Innovations
• Policies
• Processes
• Culture
• Business Model
• Groups, &
• The Individual

Starting from the bottom of the list, the innovation stack is interdependent with each module dependent on the former. Each also supports and informs the modules that follow. The innovation ecosystem that results is interdependent, which each degree of misalignment impacting the whole system.

INNOVATION PROFESSIONAL ETHICS

In order to maintain the integrity of the innovation stack, and adhere to the professional ethics and agile manifesto described earlier, the following guidelines need to be considered:

• Project goals over individual goals
• Project norms over individual norms
• Project requirements over individual requirements
• Project sustainability over individual sustainability
• Customer values over individual values

Although the above guidelines would benefit further clarification and revision the values remain authentic. The professional does not place their convenience above that of the group or project. If the professional feels ill-equipped to deliver the project’s specifications the goal is either to gain more resources or consider their fit for the project.

The goal of innovation is to solve new problems, or existing problems in new ways, to improve the quality of life (and satisfaction) of the customer. Without a satisfied customer, the business will cease to exist. Or worse, the project will deliver specifications that no one wants or needs. The task set before the professional is thus to ensure the resources, skills, and tools needed to deliver the project’s specifications are available or reconsider fit and provide additional suggestions.

Travis Barker, MPA GCPM

Innovate Vancouver

Consulting@innovatevancouver.org