Professional Ethics, Entrepreneurship and ICT Project Management
Professional ethics
Professional codes demand integrity, objectivity, confidentiality, competence and professional behaviour. Candidates must know computer misuse and criminal law, intellectual property (copyright, patents, trademarks, trade secrets, software licences), and data protection principles: lawful and fair collection, purpose limitation, accuracy, security, limited retention and data-subject rights. Related issues include privacy, whistleblowing, conflicts of interest, the digital divide and green ICT.
Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurs spot opportunities and take calculated risks. A business plan contains an executive summary, business description, market analysis, organisation and management, marketing plan and financial plan. Business forms are sole proprietorship, partnership, and private or public limited company. Finance comes from savings, bank loans, venture capital, angel investors, grants, crowdfunding and cooperatives. Know costing, pricing, break-even analysis and ICT as an enabler through e-commerce, m-commerce and freelancing.
ICT project management
The triple constraint is scope, time and cost, with quality at the centre. Phases are initiation, planning, execution, monitoring and control, and closure. Tools include the work breakdown structure, Gantt charts for timing, network diagrams with PERT and CPM for dependencies, risk registers, stakeholder analysis and change control. The critical path is the longest path and has zero float.
Trap: students call the critical path the shortest route; it is the longest, and it fixes project duration.
Worked example: A (3 days) precedes B (4) and C (6), and both precede D (2). Paths are 3+4+2 = 9 and 3+6+2 = 11 days, so the critical path is A–C–D at 11 days and B carries 2 days of float. Rule of thumb: float = late finish − early finish, and zero float identifies the critical path.