Consider the following hypothetical situation:
A publicly traded company decides to offer service X to the public. It takes the internal decision to have this service available to the public by the end of the next year. The deadline is decided by taking into account when it would be most profitable to implement service X. The CEO announces service X to the public and states that it will be available at the end of next year
A software development team is assembled, informed of the deadline and told to get under way. The team works extremely hard to get service X ready in time, but the deadline is just too tight. Nearing the deadline, management tells the team that they expect the team to pull out all the stops to get this done on time. If the CEO cannot announce service X at the shareholder meeting next month, the share price will take a hit.
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This situation and similar situations play out every day across the software development industry. I believe this to be unethical for the following reasons:
The team had no input into the setting of the deadline.
The team did their best and in many cases will put in significant unpaid overtime.
If it looks like the team will miss the deadline, pressure is brought to bear by management to encourage more (usually unpaid) overtime.
If the team fails to deliver, the share price will fall, but everyone still gets paid, including the CEO. If the team does deliver, the CEO will inevitably be compensated handsomely for his stewardship of the company. The team will be lucky to see any sort of bonus.
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Have you seen situations like this play out before?
Do you believe it's as common as I seem to think it is?
Do you believe it is unethical? Why?
What can we do about it?
A publicly traded company decides to offer service X to the public. It takes the internal decision to have this service available to the public by the end of the next year. The deadline is decided by taking into account when it would be most profitable to implement service X. The CEO announces service X to the public and states that it will be available at the end of next year
A software development team is assembled, informed of the deadline and told to get under way. The team works extremely hard to get service X ready in time, but the deadline is just too tight. Nearing the deadline, management tells the team that they expect the team to pull out all the stops to get this done on time. If the CEO cannot announce service X at the shareholder meeting next month, the share price will take a hit.
----
This situation and similar situations play out every day across the software development industry. I believe this to be unethical for the following reasons:
The team had no input into the setting of the deadline.
The team did their best and in many cases will put in significant unpaid overtime.
If it looks like the team will miss the deadline, pressure is brought to bear by management to encourage more (usually unpaid) overtime.
If the team fails to deliver, the share price will fall, but everyone still gets paid, including the CEO. If the team does deliver, the CEO will inevitably be compensated handsomely for his stewardship of the company. The team will be lucky to see any sort of bonus.
----
Have you seen situations like this play out before?
Do you believe it's as common as I seem to think it is?
Do you believe it is unethical? Why?
What can we do about it?
via International Skeptics Forum http://ift.tt/1rUCcZZ
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