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Working Up in Project Management, Systems Engineering, Technology, and Writing

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Entries from October 2013

The Government’s Customer

October 31st, 2013 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Government agencies often build systems with considering other government agencies, not taxpayers, as the customer. I hate to keep writing about healthcare.gov, but the lessons are so obvious. I have to wonder who is in charge and what they are thinking. It was the early 1990s, and the management fad of the […]

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Tags: Government · People

Big Government Programs (not)

October 28th, 2013 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Don’t try big government programs. The government doesn’t have the expertise. There have been lots of problems with the new government health care site. What surprises me is that some people are surprised. How can you not build a web site that registers users and takes orders? Amazon and just about everyone […]

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Tags: Culture · Government · Technology

Adding People to a Late Project

October 24th, 2013 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Adding people to a late project only makes it later. We have known this for decades. I don’t usually write about current events in this blog, but the front page of the Washington Post was too much to resist. The Health Care dot Gov web site has been a fiasco, but the […]

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Tags: Uncategorized

Public Restroom Architecture

October 21st, 2013 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips There is a wrong way and a right way to place a door to a public restroom. Why is this so difficult? This is a bit of an odd blog post, but here goes. I am fed up with poor public restroom architecture. There is a right and wrong way for the […]

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Tags: Design

The Personal Learning Environment

October 17th, 2013 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips I learn a few things about learning environments. I recently attended a conference on innovation in education at George Mason University. I am not a professional educator and, to be candid, I never thought much about professional educators. To show that I am not all cold hearted and stone headed, I learned […]

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Tags: Education · Learning

The Typo

October 14th, 2013 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips What is a typographical error? Writing anything incorrectly when you know what is correct. For example: He nows how to type. Their going to school. I type as fast as I can when drafting. I make lots of typographical errors, and I don’t catch them all when editing.

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Tags: Writing

Healing and Sick People

October 10th, 2013 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Sick people are harder to heal than healthy people. That sure makes everything more difficult, but that seems to be reality. Have you ever noticed that sick people are harder to heal than people who are well? Sick people have many problems. Those problems interact with one another in complex and often […]

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Tags: General Systems Thinking · Health · Problems

You are in My Way

October 7th, 2013 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Some people seem to get in the way. Perhaps I am not seeing them well. You know the type. You have met many of these people. They always seem to get in the way. I know what is right. I know which way the organization should go. There is, however, one person […]

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Tags: People

Plan Your Work, Work Your Plan, Plus

October 3rd, 2013 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips In addition to the planner’s basics, talk directly to the right people in a frank manner. Years ago, I worked with a company VP who had success on the vast majority of his projects. His “secret” was: Plan your work (in detail) Work your plan (track progress in detail) Okay, big deal. […]

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Tags: Communication · Management · People · Planning