Professional Practices

Spring 2023
 Professional Practices
Credit Hours: 3
Professional Practices is a very interesting course in which you
will be introduced to Professional practices being followed in
different organizations.

Objective of this course is to provide you an insight about

working environment of organizations, your future destination.

In this course, you will learn everything about organizational

Practices ranging from Employee's perspective to
organizational strategies in an organization.
Week # 01 Plan:

Evaluation
Week # Lecture # Topics Covered
Instrument
Used
Introduction
Introduction to Professional
Practices
Professional Responsibilities
1 Traits of a Profession.
Applying profession on
scenarios
What are the characteristics
1 of a professional?
What is ethics?
Definition of ethics
Importance of integrity
The difference between
2
Morals, Ethics, and Laws
Ethics In Information
Technology
Today’s Agenda

• Get to Know Each Other

• Course Contents

• Grading Policy

• Introduction to Professional Practices

Course Outline
• Introduction
• Ethics
• Privacy
• Intellectual property
• SE/ACM codes
• Crimes
• Errors failures and risks
• Ethics of IT organizations
Marks Distribution

Mid Term (30%)

4 Assignments (20%)
6 Quizzes (10 %)
Final Exam (40%)
Assignments & Quizzes
Before Midterm

A1 Q1

A2 Q2

Q3

After Midterm

A3 Q4

A4 Q5

Q6
Introduction
• Profession:

A paid occupation, especially one that involves prolonged training

and a formal qualification.

• Professional:

A professional is a member of a profession or any person who

earns their living from a specified professional activity. The term
also describes the standards of education and training that
prepare members of the profession with the particular knowledge
and skills necessary to perform their specific role within that
profession.
 The Professionalism

• A profession isn’t just what you do, it’s who you are.

• Professionalism is a way of thinking and living rather than an

accumulation of learning.
Professional Practices
Professional Practices is partly comprised of what a
professional should or should not do in the work-place.

 If a professional is to have ethics then that person needs

to adopt that conduct in all of his dealings.

 Another aspect is the enhancement of the profession and

the industry within which the professional works.
Professional Practices
• Professional Practices is a discipline aimed at: -

• Understanding the moral values that ought to guide

engineering profession or practice.
• Resolving moral issue in engineering.
• Justifying the moral judgment in engineering.
Professional Practices

• It deals with moral problems and issues connected with

engineering.
• Another important goal is to discover the set of justified
moral principles or obligations, rights and ideals and
apply them to concrete situations.
 Traits of a Profession
Four Traits of Profession
1. Varied activities requiring special skills
2. Society-centric motivation
3. Personal standards of excellence
4. Giving back to society
A professional behaves ethically
• Ethics means something more than ‘law’ and ‘morals’.
• It carries an additional connotation of ‘rightness’.
 Breaking the law: can earn a fine or jail time
 Breaking a moral: can ruin your reputation
 Breaking an ethic: can ruin your conscience
It’s possible to break all three, simultaneously!
Traits of a Professional
• Being a professional means that there are certain traits which are
expected from you.

• We will go through Each of them

Trait # 1 of a professional: Seriousness

• Serious about job

• The job is only a job. A means to an end
Trait # 2 of a professional:
Wanting to do better
• Exhibit a never-ending quest to improve their performance in every
variable, every project, every relationship, and every detail.
Trait # 3 of a professional: Dealing
with the Unexpected

• Stuff happens, things change, and the true professional rises to the
occasion
Trait # 4 of a professional: Communication Skills

• Clear
• Concise
• Confident
Trait # 5 of a professional: Enthusiasm

• Attitude is everything. Those who exhibit enthusiasm for what

they do and greet each day with a positive attitude inevitably
become a leader
Trait # 6 of a professional: Helpfulness

• Understand that real success in the workplace requires teamwork

• Always ready to lend a hand
• Make a suggestion
• Offer a compliment when it’s deserved
Trait # 7 of a professional: Taking
the Initiative

• Takes the initiative to get things done

Trait # 8 of a professional: Cool under Pressure

• Level headed and calm

• Cheerful demeanor-even under stressful times
Trait # 9 of a professional: Remains Focused

• Stay focused on the task at hand and the goal ahead

• Navigate through obstacles or setbacks but never lose sight of
where they headed
Trait # 10 of a professional: Don’t Follow, Lead

• True Professionals aren’t faint of heart

• Analyze the situation and willing to take new paths and try new
solutions
• That’s why they call it LEADERSHIP!
Applying Professionalism in Real
Life
Scenario #1
• You are the owner of a software engineering company. Your
employees (engineers) want you to pay for them to attend
training.
• How would you respond in a way that is legal, moral, and ethical?
Scenario #2
• You are the owner of a software engineering company. Your
employees (engineers) want you to let them do pro bono work for
a local non-profit organization on company time.
• How would you respond in a way that is legal, moral, and ethical?
Scenario #3
• You are a software engineer at a company where management
routinely encourages you and your colleagues to use pirated
software.
• How would you respond in a way that is legal, moral, and ethical?
What are the characteristics of a professional?
True professionals possess a number of important characteristics that can
apply to virtually any type of business.

• Appearance. [Dress for Success]

• Demeanor. [manner, air, attitude, appearance, look]

• Reliability.

• Competence.

• Ethics.

• Maintaining Your Poise.[balance · equilibrium · control · grace ·

gracefulness · presence]

• Written Correspondence.

• Organizational Skills

• Accountability
ETHICS FIRST
Wrong is wrong even if
everyone is doing it. Right is
right even if no one is doing
it.
Dictionary meaning
Ethics

The branch of knowledge that deals with

moral principles.
Moral

• Concerned with the principles of right and wrong behavior and

the goodness or badness of human character.
• Holding or manifesting high principles for proper conduct.
 Definition of Ethics
• Ethics is a set of beliefs about right and wrong behavior within a
society.
• Virtues
 Habits that incline people to do what is acceptable

• Vices
 Habits of unacceptable behavior

• Virtues and vices define a personal value system

 Scheme of moral values

Fairness, generosity, and loyalty are examples of virtues,

while vanity, greed, envy, and anger are considered vices.
The Difference Between Morals,
Ethics, and Laws
• Morals: one’s personal beliefs about right and wrong
• Ethics: standards or codes of behavior expected of an individual by a
group(nation, organization, profession).
• Law: system of rules that tells us what we can and cannot do
 Laws are enforced by a set of institutions
 Legal acts conform to the law
 Moral acts conform to what an individual believes is the right belief of right
and wrong.
Comparison
Code of Ethics
• Established by various professional organizations
 Produce a positive effect on judgment.
 Establishes responsibility of professionals to act ethically according to the
policies and procedures of their employers, professional organizations, and
laws of society.
 Organizations assume responsibility to develop, disseminate, and enforce
policies.
Code of Ethics’ Goals
Provides an aid to individual decision making, presentation
addresses nine different cases (with some overlap).

• Intellectual property
• Privacy
• Confidentiality
• Professional quality
• Fairness or discrimination
• Liability
• Software risks
• Conflicts of interest
• Unauthorized access to computer systems
The Importance of Integrity
• Integrity is a cornerstone of ethical behaviour
• People with integrity:
 Act in accordance with a personal code of principles
 Extend to all the same respect and consideration
 Apply the same moral standards in all situations

• Lack of integrity emerges if you apply moral standards differently

according to situation or people involved
• Many ethical dilemmas are not as simple as right versus wrong
Immoral or Unethical ??
• If the son of a big politician has committed a crime and he uses his
powers to free his son from legal consequences.

• A very close friend or relative of an interviewer comes for an interview

and without asking a single question, he selects him.

• A grocer sells adulterated products to his customers to earn more

profit.
Workplace Ethics
• Punctuality
• Responsibility
• Integrity
• Loyalty
• Positive attitude
• Teamwork
• Showing respect
• Courtesy
• Productivity
• Taking care of office equipment
• Minding Language
• For example, Jon Huntsman, Sr. is a multibillionaire
who started a chemical company from scratch and
grew it into a $12 billion enterprise. His book,
Winners Never Cheat, is filled with stories taken
from his own experience in which he steadfastly
refused to compromise his principles. Huntsman
says that integrity is the reason that he has been as
successful as he is.

“There are no moral shortcuts in the game of

business or life,” he writes. “There are, basically,
three kinds of people, the unsuccessful, the
temporarily successful, and those who become and
remain successful. The difference is character.”
Leaders with Integrity
• Aren’t Afraid Of The Truth
 seeing the world as it really is, not as you wish it to be
 open to the idea that they could be wrong

• Good at giving And Keeping Promises

• Do The Right Thing Because It’s The Right Thing To Do
• Never Compromise Their Honesty And Integrity By Cheating
The Quran reminded man of a number
of basic moral and ethical values

You are the best nation that has been raised up for mankind; You
enjoin right conduct, forbid evil and believe in Allah. (3:110)

ِ‫ُكْنُتْم َخ ْيَر ُأَّمٍة ُأْخ ِرَج ْت ِللَّناِس َتْأُمُر وَن ِباْلَمْعُر وِف َوَتْنَهْوَن َعِن اْلُمْنَكِر َوُتْؤِمُنوَن ِبالَّله‬

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 Cont. Ethics from Islamic Perspective
The Quran addresses the Prophet. “Thou has been created with an
excellent character”

‫وانه لعلى خلق عظيم‬

The Prophet highlighted one of his main objective is to perfecting good

morals

“I have been sent for the purpose of perfecting good morals”.

‫بعثت التمم مكارم االخالق‬

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HADITH
• “He
who has a good nature will
have the reward of those who
observe fasting in days and keep
awake praying at nights.”
Why Professional Ethics?
• The success or the expected results depend on how the workers deal
with the situations. Whether ethically or unethically. If they are dealt
ethically, the chances are positive for growth and development.
End of Introduction
• Next: 30 Corporate Lessons from Holy Quran