A Discussion About Ethics in Product Management
In this episode of the Scrum.org Community Podcast, Dave West is joined by Magdalena Firlit and Patricia Kong to explore the role of ethics in product management. They discuss why ethical frameworks matter, the impact of transparency and bias, and how ethical decision-making builds trust and resilience.
Transcript
Lindsay Velecina 0:00
Announcer, welcome to the scrum.org community podcast, a podcast from the home of Scrum. In this podcast, we feature professional scrum trainers and other scrum practitioners sharing their stories and experiences to help learn from the experience of others. We hope you enjoy this episode.
Dave West 0:20
Hello and welcome to the scrum.org community podcast. I'm your host. Dave West, CEO, here@scrum.org in today's podcast, we're going to be talking to two really interesting people about a subject that has actually intrigued humanity for 1000s of years. We're going to be talking about the topic of ethics in product management. Obviously, that may be people haven't debated Product Management for 1000s of years, but they certainly have debated ethics. This podcast was inspired by a recent white paper on ethics, written by the two authors that we're going to talk to today. It's a really interesting topic, so I'm very lucky to be joined today by Magdalena fullit PST from Poland, but actually we're going to lean into her master's thesis on philosophy. So PST, and really into philosophy and ethics and all that sort of like really intellectual stuff that she can make very practical for us today, and Patricia Kong, who leads our learning products@scrum.org and in that capacity, has to think a lot about when we're developing products@scrum.org you know, is this ethical? Is this right? Is does this conform with the ethics of scrum.org whether that's in the sort of details, you know, whether it's an exercise or some slide or some discussion or or whether, at the sort of macro level, should we even be talking about this stuff. So welcome to the podcast, Trish and Magda.
Patricia Kong 1:55
Hello.
Magdalena Firlit 1:57
Hello.
Dave West 1:59
It's great to have you. And this is a, this is a bit of a thorny, politically sensitive, awkward topic. So, so it's we're going to sort of navigate through this. So I guess we should start with one of the most important questions, why? Why should ethics be a core part of business and product strategy and and what happens when it isn't, you know, if you there are members even of our community who believe that products are products you build the best product you possibly can to deliver value to your customers and deliver value to your stakeholders. You know, profitable, etc, and that's all you should worry about. So why should ethics play a part of this? Magda, maybe you should, you know, with your philosophy and deep understanding of the topic begin?
Magdalena Firlit 2:50
Yeah, sure, sure, I can share my background and whatever, whatever I can to help people understand it, maybe a little bit more in a different way, because the answer, because products shape human behavior and influence how people act, and whether we mean it too or not, the way we design things, use data and choose what to build, affects real People, like users, employees and even the whole community. So ethics is not just a big idea or some sort of a theory, but actually ethics helps us see more consequences before they become problems. So in other words, maybe make it simple. It help us make better decisions
Dave West 3:43
and build better products for our stakeholders. Would that? Would that
Magdalena Firlit 3:47
be right exactly, exactly, and when ethics is missing from product strategy? Obviously, things can go wrong, like people, meaning users, customers, they lose trust. Companies get into legal trouble sometimes, or their reputation takes ahead. So think about tricky design, manipulative patterns, for example, sneaky subscription traps or features that leave some groups out that might bring fast results, but they usually backfire later for both the company and the people using the product. So sometimes organizations use their ethical frameworks intuitively. But I think that awareness and visibility might lead to great conversations about ethics, about decisions, customer trust, and from my perspective, it's strongly connected with value delivery. And finally, strategies might be updated. After all, sometimes I seen it in organizations, and I'm really happy that they started this conversation anyway. Yeah.
Dave West 5:00
Yeah, interesting. Trish, you know, you were involved in this white paper. What does it? What does it mean to you on your day to day? You know? What? Why? Why do you bring ethics, scrum.org, ethics to the to the to the table?
Patricia Kong 5:15
Yeah. So I think even, even before the day to day. So I know you and I, Dave, we have backgrounds in startup organizations. So the way that we make decisions, and have had to make decisions, and Magda, you have, and you work with a lot of companies, it's you make decisions quickly, and you have to think about their impact. And sometimes, when we're working in something like a startup where you're you're really looking at every penny and everything you you you can cut corners if you're not careful, and for the wrong reason. So when we think about that from a scrum perspective, an agile perspective, a lot of people think, Oh, you're just going fast. And I think when, when Magda and I were having conversations about this, it's really getting back to that, what is the value conversation? What is, what does it mean when you're iterating quickly, and how do you bring in the ethics into that conversation, on a on a regular cadence, where you're where you're creating that awareness on the team, and you're really having those things to to get that pulse check every time from scrum.org on a basis we're we're creating knowledge and education, or we're creating a way where we share that. And so that's so important about how we're bringing people into the conversation, and how that how that scales. So that was really important to me, especially with everybody talking about AI. One of the other parts is about ethics and security. So I thought it was a good time for us to do a little research and share that kind of information with everybody.
Dave West 6:49
Yeah. I mean, I certainly enjoyed reading, reading the white paper. And it just, it made me, I mean, how it landed with me, with just sort of step back a little bit and go, you know, why do we make those decisions? Is there another perspective that we should apply to get that sort of transparency? But I do have a question, because, and I'm wrestling, there's this myself, you know, when we talk about ethics, who you know, is it the company's ethical model? Is it the product owner's ethical model? Is it the stakeholders, the users, society as a whole? Who are we trying to trying to understand, are we trying to understand the user's ethical model so that we can build the product that fits them, or are we trying to be true to the to our ethics, etc? So I don't know. The who is a really interesting question. I don't know Magda. It must be something that you think about when you're working with clients, because obviously you come in with your own point of view, usually a pretty awesome one. From experience, the what do you do in those situations? Whose ethics are they
Magdalena Firlit 8:12
saying or answering? Everyone that's that's not the answer, of course, what we need to, of course, not what we need to take into into account. And what's what I do is looking at different people, different cultures, sometimes and roles, may see the same decisions very differently. So, for example, what feels fair to the business might feel invasive to the user, and what seems efficient to the team might feel exclusionary to a specific group of customers. So it's so difficult, so hard and well, that's why we need to make it visible. We need to start a conversation about it for who we are saying ethics. That's why, also we have different frameworks and different ethical theories. They are all shaped at some point in our document. So I believe our readers can find them very interesting, because they are from different angles and from different perspectives. Sometimes in one organization, we can use completely different frameworks at the same time, and I believe that's okay. But whose values are we shaping this choice? That should be the question, Who benefits? Who might be left out. That's, for me, the most important question, and I would make it more practical, and I would start with so that's that's why we should have the stakeholder conversation. Sometimes we may affect the communities, even future generations. Yes, in some organizations, for example, in healthcare, or we can impact with our decisions, our current users or employees. So that's why there is no simple and single answer, yes. In a nutshell, I would say all day. Oh, but of course, I wanted to make it more with some examples, right?
Dave West 10:14
It's obviously we're all aware of perhaps the highest profile ethical and legal mistake that was made by Volkswagen right when they a software engineer basically cheated the system of admissions for their diesel engines to so that when you did the test, you put it in one mode, which performed significantly worse but generated less emissions than when you were actually driving it. And obviously he went to, he went to prison because of that. Is that the kind of, I mean that, and it's a very obviously high, high profile, big ethical dilemma. But you know that when he received that user story and decided how to, I think they were actually using Scrum, which, by the way, I'm not saying that scrum should be used in illegal activities, by the way, here, but the when he received that user story in JIRA and started working on it, is, is that when ethics, you know? I mean, is that an ethical dilemma? Is that a legal dilemma? Is that, where do the two fit together? Is that just like, oh my god, I'm actually going to be cheating? Where does it fit? Where does ethics fit in a problem like
Patricia Kong 11:36
that? I mean, everywhere, right? Heck, yeah. So the person had had a had a severe consequence. So I think, I think in terms of thinking what Magda was saying about different stakeholders is really important. So that goes from employees, the customers, the suppliers, the community, the environment, the society, and that's all wrapped up in that Volkswagen story, right? So who was affected? And I think the question for Volkswagen was, who do we care was affected? Or even when you're building a product, do we care about, you know, the employees, is a different one, and so choosing the framework and being transparent with that, but with that one, I think with Volkswagen, or the question, if they were using Scrum, would be interesting during the reviews. You know, what? What are we manipulating anywhere here? What are our blind spots? What are how are you getting that done? What did you know? All those questions, if they were looking at that around those futures, would have been interesting. And I wonder if it was beyond that. One software developer who
Dave West 12:39
who knew this problem. And I think, well, I mean, yeah. And I'm not close enough to the to the to the real situation to comment other than I read the the press about it. Rumor has it they were using an agile approach, which makes it likely that they're using Scrum. And whether the it's funny that none of the management were indicted. It was just him, right? But so, so ultimately, it's about transparency and about choice. Is that, is that right? Magnum,
Magdalena Firlit 13:12
yeah, that's, that's right. Like, what we are trying to do in organization is to make everything visible, visible and transparent and asking right questions to starting with and using what we have like, we have our scrum events. For example, when people are working with Scrum way, obviously they have their scrum events. So what we do, we use them to ask those questions like, for example, who benefits from this or who can be harmed? Actually, the especially when the item or a feature or user story, whatever it is might be, might be tricky or risky at some point.
Patricia Kong 13:57
I think we wrote a lot about transparency, obviously, in the paper, and maybe even, I can't remember if we brought up consent, but obviously when you're thinking about digital products versus consent, I think one thing, and this is, I guess you're going to ask about AI, but this is where AI could be your friend or foe. Is about bias. So especially when we're making decisions, because product people, they're making decisions. So I think it's about the bias that we that's creeping in, especially when we're moving quickly. So being aware of that, because you're you can be transparent about what you're aware about, but just thinking about what biases you may have, your team may have, the company may have. And so checking that, maybe using AI, or discussing that into the reviews, backing that one step into the DOD for Scrum teams, I think that might be helpful too.
Dave West 14:53
It's interesting that bias is something that you picked up on and talked about Trish, because you. Yeah, bias is a really hard beast. It, you know it? It obviously makes us incredibly we've evolved bias to allow us to survive in an environment that is incredibly dangerous, right? Biases autumn automate certain decision making processes in a way that allows us to don't whatever you do. Don't talk to the guy with a really big, you know, stick, because he's going to kill you. So, you know, so and he's in a different tribe, or whatever, you know, millions of, not millions, but 10s of 1000s of years ago. So biases have evolved to protect us, and making them transparent is really hard and and I think, you know, the team, the scrum team, particularly if it's a rich, diverse scrum team, can really help there. And, you know, make by making their perspective on the solutions that you're building and the problems that you're solving very transparent, and it makes those biases and those things very a lot more obvious is that is basically just by getting these things in front of more people, making them transparent, it then allows an environment to thrive. Is that? Is that without, is that both your recommendations?
Patricia Kong 16:13
I think, I think so. I think we're also pretty explicit about do you have a framework that guides how you make decisions around ethics. Are you know, how inclusive, or what type of inclusivity Do you want to have? What's that design look like? What are the you know, if you go and think about how to what you know in the framework, we talk about different, different frameworks around risk, but one of them is around how you design and think about impact. And so we talked about, let me see inclusivity, social impact, and human centered design. If you go one step further, there's ethical UX design. And so that brings in, you know, how, how are we not exploiting people? How do we think about when we ask the question, will we be proud to tell the customer what we're doing to them? It goes once. And so, you know, just having a company that's explicit and about their values and what type of what type of guidance they have for dealing up around that would probably make things a little easier. Make things easier, well, very hard, and then easier,
Magdalena Firlit 17:13
very hard. And also, we can tie this up with the first your question, Dave, what about the business and the product strategy, if it's there, if we are thinking in terms of those strategies, and when we have those ethic framework somehow included or discussed there, and of course, visible, transparent, etc. So it's easier, and then for the rest of the team and for stakeholders might be easier to understand why we proceed in The Sims stop, why we are working in the Certain Way, why we value this value smalls or this views most or some of them less. Actually, that's why, that's why it might be so important also to think again about business and protect strategy.
Dave West 18:10
So isn't it risky, though, in a way, isn't it, you know, in this very and okay, we're going to get a little political here, but not really, I hope trying to avoid being political, but in this very, di, very device, divisive world that we live in, by making your your ethics explicit, it could create Some really tense and challenging situations. You know, the whether it's around inclusivity, whether it's around things like pronouns, whether it's around, you know, gender diversity, whether it's around ethnic diversity, whether it's around religious challenges. You know, examples that we use, we'll avoid. We could avoid, for instance, if we're a menu system, we could, you know, avoid talking about certain animals that some religions hold sacred, like like the cow, for instance, in India, you know, the point is all of those things, but it can be very divisive and and actually cause quite a lot of conflict by making them transparent, as opposed to keeping your head down and not mentioning it. And I'm sure that that happens. It certainly happened with me. I've avoided, I've just done something, avoided making it transparent as to why I've done it, because I just couldn't. I don't want to say, be bothered, but I actually, yes, I didn't want to deal with the oh, well, you're all this. Oh, wow, look at you. You're European, you're English, you're whatever you know. So I. So can it be risky?
Magdalena Firlit 20:05
I can answer first, Trish, if it's okay. So like when we have stakeholders, like a broader group, yeah, include, including users, customers, of course, employees, even regulators, communities and generations, everyone, everyone who might be interested in our product. So we need to manage those relationships ethically, and means making trades of visible and being transparent about the intent. So actually, you don't need to follow all those frameworks at the same time, because you cannot satisfy everyone. Right? We cannot. We need to make a decision, what is the best for for our customers, our users, our employees, because when one group's value might be another group's harm So and actually here we call it ethical stakeholder management, and it's, for me, about dealing and competing interests with some fairness and responsibility. But of course, at some point, and it is challenging, it is especially when we deal with complex environments. So so it is, but I think it's also the part of products, owner accountability, with the help of of course, internal stakeholders and sometimes external like partners or regulators, especially in the European Union, we have when the regulations. So that's why I mentioned them. Yeah,
Dave West 21:40
yeah. Yeah. I mean, I find it, yeah. I think it is challenging, though, and having those conversations is the responsibility of the product owner. Trish,
Patricia Kong 21:49
yeah, I was it made me think about actually something Ken, Ken Schwaber always says to me, which is, do the right thing, because then at least you did the right thing. And the question is, what was the right thing, right? So I think, I think it's, it's, I think, of course there's risk, and especially now with so many people choosing what brands and where they want to work based on, you know, some different points of views, I think it's, it's, it's, it's a lot of it's a lot of work. It's challenging, but as long as the leaders are in place, and especially when making decisions about a product, whatever trade offs you are taking that everything you're doing is intentional and that it's not going to be accidental. So to be strategic about it, and that might be somebody's strategy to, you know, not say anything, or to take a hard stance based on what they believe in.
Dave West 22:46
I i think the word hard stance is interesting, or the phrase hard stance is interesting because, from my experience of having these situations, for instance, we wanted to increase the number of females in the PST community. That was a that was a decision and and it was business strategy, strategic that we decided, because ultimately, we want to be more like our customers. And there's a lot of females that need Scrum, you know, I mean, it's goes without saying, right? So how did that then, and what did we do to the PST program? How did it affect the and being open about the fact that I would prioritize a female candidate over a male candidate in in certain geographies was I we were explicit, and it was difficult, because we had members of our community that said, No, we should just get the best people. I don't see gender is what they responded with, which is a very fair position from them. However, I said, Look, if we don't do this, we're really not doing our customers a service. And it though it was ethical, it was also very business oriented. You know, there was a, there was a balance there that was, I think, super, super important. But it is, it is hard, and it takes time and a lot of conversations. And that's the thing that, you know, you talk a lot Trish about, let's, you know, deliver fast. You're really into that. It's a key tenant of Scrum, frequent. But these conversations take time and require a level of empathy with the stakeholders, the users, the regulators. Are all these different people, because you have to understand what their perspective is as a product owner and these and and you can't replace that with chat, GPT, prompt engineering. It has to be a conversation because it's, it's so nuanced and so complex. You know, when you make decisions, the why, this is why, and this is how, you know, etc, etc. It. It. It is, it is very challenging.
Patricia Kong 25:02
I mean, for that, for that example, I mean, that's like the turning a ship, right? So you can make a decision, we are going to intentionally create a level, what is that called a level playing, level playing field, right? So we want a certain type of representation, and we want to do that, and we have our reasons why, and so we're going to make these decisions and and that's going to and that's going to take time, and we think that the best community is one that looks like this. So that's a decision done.
Dave West 25:33
It's hard, isn't it, being a product owner,
Patricia Kong 25:35
it's hard human,
Dave West 25:40
oh my gosh, stretch. Yes, it's so hard being a human. But there isn't any alternatives at the moment that I've discovered. Maybe when I can download my conscious into a into a sentient AI, then I I can change that. But, yeah, it is hard, and it's that's interesting. You bring up the word human. Use the word human. I think one thing, Scrum, and obviously we all spend, or we've all spent quite a lot of time with Ken. And one thing, it's humane workplace. This idea of humanity is something that Ken talks quite a lot about, and cares deeply about it, because he believes that if you do that, you'll deliver more, you'll have fun doing it, which will mean you'll deliver more, you'll get better at it, and the world becomes a better place. We make an impact. Well, it
Patricia Kong 26:34
makes me curious. Magda, what attracted you to philosophy? I mean, we have these conversations.
Magdalena Firlit 26:39
Yeah, I was thinking about it, and there were two reasons. The first reason I was always interested, like, with different kind of frameworks, approaches. And that's why empiricism, for me, is important, and that's why also, this is one reason. The second reason was, like, the really, really simple. My second degree was from the high school was like the technician, technician and chemistry field, and I was allergic to many different substances, chemical substances. So that was, that was something that was very, very simple reason, just a health reason, I couldn't proceed because I was thinking about making a proceeding with a master degree in chemistry field, but, but I they couldn't. I just couldn't. And I was thinking, what's my button? What's my alternative into this. And this is a, yeah, this is what I what I like the most, of course, I then I graduated from more than this one, but this, that was my first, my first, my first, like the major degree. And I enjoyed really, really, because it helped me understand. But there are different perspective, different virtues, also different kinds of value, different human beings, etc, different behavior and everything there. Yeah. So in a nutshell, because I can talk and talk a lot about it, not sure if it's interesting for others.
Dave West 28:20
Curiosity, the word curiosity, I think that you know that the great thing about philosophy and ethics as a discipline as an is that the desire to have curiosity about why people make decisions in a certain way and what ultimately causes angst. You know, so from my experience, when, when, when you go against your ethics, whether that's to close that deal at the end of the quarter or whether it's to avoid a good example is you know, you know that this product that you're selling may not do exactly what the customer really believes, honestly, but it's the end of the quarter and your boss is saying, if you don't close this stuff, from my experience, when you delete, when you deliver that revenue, yes, you get the immediate happiness and the light, but long term, you then go back into that client, and it's a very challenging experience. So
Patricia Kong 29:26
that's why a lot of product people and sales people don't like each other. It's
Dave West 29:30
exactly why a lot of product people and sales people don't like each other. However. You know, I read, I realized quite quickly in my career that I needed to be transparent and honest and open with the client, even if it put at risk the the the deal and and I, you know, I had a number of sales people that weren't particularly happy about that, but ultimately it ended at Good. Ended in a lot better position, because it created this thing called trust. First, it created this thing called Honest, you know, this honest, trusting relationship, which then allowed us to move forward. And I think that that is the impact of making ethics transparent and being and having those difficult conversations about choices and decisions. I could talk forever about this, I guess. All right, we've come to towards the end of our time, and you know, we've got a lot of people listening who are probably thinking, Okay, that's cool. Philosophically, I get it practically, though. What's the one thing that that they can do in their scrum team, or in their team today with their stakeholders? What's the one thing that you would recommend every product person or every member of a scrum team does around this topic?
Magdalena Firlit 30:49
So first of all, I would start with the question, what ethical framework are we following? Because this awareness makes a difference. Well, now we are realizing, but we are following something, but maybe there are other choices. This is the first thing, and then followed by measurable goals, visual data, measures, decisions and thinking in terms of what you said just a moment ago about building trust, because then we can attract our loyal customers, for example, and it's important for us, of course, and create a more resilient business in the long run. So this is the things, what we need to balance. There are plenty of answers, Dave, but you ask about one thing, so I try to make it so think about the
Dave West 31:37
framework. Yeah, decide on your framework and then determine that sort of then the outcome is ultimately about trust. Okay, exactly.
Patricia Kong 31:47
And then after you do that, I think they always say a good rule of thumb is, if you wouldn't feel comfortable explaining it to someone, or, let's say, your customer face to face, then maybe we shouldn't be doing that and have a conversation about it. And and and, of course, since you asked for one thing, I have to give you two. And the second one we talked about, which is bias. Think about where the biases are. If
Dave West 32:09
it's an awkward conversation, it's perhaps good to have it.
Patricia Kong 32:15
Shame, shame, shame,
Dave West 32:16
shame. Shame is a good thing. Okay. Miss Brown Brene Brown there, who obviously influences some of our ethical transparency approaches. Ladies, thank you so much for spending the time. This is a truly interesting topic, and one we could talk for hours about so I really appreciate you both writing the white paper and and joining us today on the scrum.org community podcast.
Magdalena Firlit 32:48
Thank you for having us. Thank you.
Dave West 32:54
Wow, that was interesting, wasn't it, and thank you for listening to today's scrum.org community podcast, as you heard, we've been talking to Magda and Trish about ethics. Ethics, it's always an interesting topic, right? And one that can be very emotive and cause lots of lots of conflict in a team, I guess their recommendation is make it transparent, even if that does create some level of conflict, as long as you go in with a area of curiosity and respect, everything is going to be all right, and you'll ultimately be in a better place, and your customers will be in a better place, and your stakeholders will be in a better place as you drive through these ethical decisions about the products that you're building. Great conversation. If you liked what you heard today, please subscribe, share with friends, and, of course, come back and listen to some more. I'm lucky enough to have a variety of guests talking about everything in the area of professional Scrum, product thinking. And, of course, agile. Thanks for your time. Scrum on you.
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