Latest
6 July 2010 - I go down the Colorado River with ten members of my extended family. I blog about this on the Working Up blog.
8 June 2010 - I have self-published my manuscirpt on Systems Engineering. I used FastPencil. See this blog post for information.
17 April 2010 - My image processing book is available online at several locations - at no cost. See the book section below for the links.
10 April 2010 - I am now volunteer writing tutor for engineering, computer science, and IT students at George Mason University. I do this several nights a week. I am having great fun working with the students. My book on Systems Engineering is still available.
28 March 2010 - I am releasing my book on Systems Engineering as a F R E E PDF file. See below for a quick note and look here for more information and the download link.
Books
I have a new book coming in 2008 on project management. It is
titled "Working Up to Project Management:
How Crushing Rocks at the Asphalt Plant Prepared Me for Government
Work."
(ISBN: 978-0-932633-66-8, 224 pages softcover)
It is available from
Dorset House Publishing at
this spot
on their web site
Roy O'Bryan and I have written It Sounded Good When We Started. It contains stories and lessons learned from working with people on projects over the years. We think project managers can benefit from our mistakes.
In addition, I have written The Software Project Manager's Handbook now out in it's second edition. It contains information I have learned over the years about managing software projects of all sorts and sizes. The IEEE Computer Society published this book.
These two books are available at http://computer.org and www.wiley.com/ieeecs. Amazon (http://www.amazon.com) and Barnes and Noble (http://www.barnesandnoble.com) also sell them.
I wrote Image Processing in C.
It discusses many topics in image processing.
It is loaded with source code. R&D Publishing
(http://rdbooks.com)
published this in 1994.
The second edition of this book is available in electronic form from me on a CD-ROM. Send me an e-mail for details. Also, the second edition is available online. The text of the book is on scribd.com. The complete package (book, source code, etc.) is on this collection site.
Just Enough Systems Engineering
I have a text on Systems Engineering. Most books on Systems Engineering are 500+ pages long and cost over $150. My book is117 pages and is F R E E to download in a PDF file. It covers the essential practices and skills of Systems Engineering. Look here for information and to download.
Blogs
I have several blogs.
- Working Up where I share thoughts on project management, systems engineering, technology, and writing.
- My day book patterned after Jerry Pournelle's view. It contains daily entries of items I have found of interest.
- In 2008, I wrote 53 shorts stories (one per week). The last of these are linked here.
- Taking a Walk - walking from Northern Virginia to Southeastern Louisiana. I finished this 1,100-mile walk in October of 2009. It was great fun. There are nearly 100 entries in this blog.
Reviews
Here are a few books and other publications I have read and reviewed:- A book review of Scott Berkun's Making Things Happen.
- A book review of Jerry Weinberg's Perfect Software and other illusions about testing.
- A book review of Jerry Weinberg's The Aremac Project.
- A book review of Andrenaline Junkies and Template Zombies.
- A book
review of
The Art of Lean
Software Development
Other Publications
I have also written a number of other articles. Complete list of publications.
See my Travel Blog posts I spend a lot of time traveling as part of my job. I have written a couple of essays about traveling. I hope you enjoy them.
Some have appeared in The Cutter IT Journal The Cutter IT Journal (formerly American Programmer). (see www.cutter.com).
Some have appeared in the Cutter IT e-mail Advisor (see www.cutter.com).
I wrote a series of articles image processing as well as other programming papers for The C/C++ Users Journal in the 1990s.
I wrote a couple of editorials for The Open Channel page of IEEE's Computer. (see www.computer.org)
The Cutter IT Journal:
An IDEA to Satisfy PeopleBack to the Basics: Metrics that Work for Software Projects
How People Drive the Outsourcing Process (Sometimes Off the Road)
Show Me How to do That: "Just Enough" Software Process for the 21st Century
How to Make a V-Shaped Spiral -- and Vice Versa
Using Architecture to Save Intellectual Property
Configuration Management: The Rule Book for Complex Projects
People, Process, and Product
The Cutter IT E-Mail Advisor:
Flying, Eyeing, and Buying
Of Bravery, Cowardice, and Recognizing Fatigue
To Assess Risk, Be Wary of Personal Viewpoints
Plans, Planning, and other Types of Engagement
The Curse of COTS
Resisting the Technology Imperative
Urban Legends (At Work)
A Crippling Comment
Free Time
Advances from Suffering from Mistakes
The Most Important One Second
Drill Down vs Picking Nits: A Management Technique
An Afternoon in a Hospital Waiting Room
Celebrations - A Tribute to the People at Virginia Tech University
A Manager's Metric: The Employee Weigh-In
Just One, More, Little Change
I Thought They Knew What They Were Doing
No One Would Do That! or Why Engineers Should Attend Budget Meetings
Introductions
Maternity Leave, Surfing, and Long Walks
A Peculiar Project
Key Moments in Projects
No Surprises
Good Old Project Management
Summer Jigsaw Puzzles and Project Management
Returning to Some Fundamentals
Frankenstein at Work
Process: Antiprocess
Plan for Success, then Plan for the Blues
Don't Forget to Breathe
Working Out of the Comfort Zone
Let Someone Else Test It
Let Me Just Do It: A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
The Most Important Project in Anyone's Career
Some Thoughts on Requirements Management
Risk Management: We Need to Change the Name
On Second Thought
The Healthy Skeptic
A Quick Cure for Painful Document Writing
Risk Management: We Need to Change the Name
Negative Synergy
Let Us Pause to Reconsider (Again)
The Words We Use
Messages: Judging Them or using Them
Working During a Community Crisis
Extreme System Failures
Derived Requirements
It Matters What You Say, or It's Alive An Employee Awakens
The Free Bagel Measure of Project Health
Dedication Requires Good Management
The Open Channel of IEEE's Computer
Technocentrism
Is Your Project a Dilbert Cartoon?
Travel Essays
Summer TravelPOSH Travel Still Exists
Full Airplanes
About
My name is Dwayne Phillips. I live in the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington D.C. After about 28 years working for the U.S. government as a systems and computer engineer, I retired from that in November 2008. I now do much of the same for ITT in Northern Virginia. One of my avocations is writing about technical subjects.
d.phillips@computer.org