Working Up

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

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The Seemingly Under Qualified

March 7th, 2024 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips History is filled with great accomplishments accomplished by people who shouldn’t be able to accomplish them. While not accomplishing great accomplishments, I find that I was almost always under qualified. I read history. Some would tell me that I read and reread too much history. One item I read repeatedly is someone […]

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Tags: Choose · Competence · People · Success · Trust · Wishes

Do What Is Best (Or at Least Do What Is Better)

February 26th, 2024 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Sometimes, the better thing to do is let people do what they think is best or at least what they think is better on any given day. “We are a fill-in-the-blank organization. We use best fill-in-the-blank practices as described by fill-in-the-second-blank who described fill-in-the-blank in the seminal blog post on fill-in-the-blank,” said […]

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Tags: Decide · Management · Mistakes · People · Permission · Practice · Reaction

I Want People to Miss Me

January 22nd, 2024 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Much of what we pass off as complicated issues comes from something simple, the desire to be missed. I like to listen to the podcast of former Washington Post writer Tony Kornheiser. I laugh a lot while listening. Mr. Kornheiser is a big movie fan and follows the culture as he was […]

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Tags: Change · Coffee · Culture · People · Thank you · Wishes

The Local Phone Call

January 11th, 2024 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips There was a time when a local phone call was special. Today, we have social media. Same thing, but we tend to use it differently. We don’t have to. Many years ago there was such a thing as a long-distance phone call and a local phone call. The long-distance call was charged […]

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Tags: Choose · Conversation · Internet · People

Lower the Bar

November 23rd, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Sometimes we simply have to lower expectations when it comes to what other people will do. Too bad. We can do better. It happened again the other day at work. I needed signatures on paper, or at least the digital equivalent of them. It was all set. Go to this building on […]

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Tags: Accountability · Alternatives · Expectations · Failure · Improvement · People · Work

Work a Little, Learn a Little

August 3rd, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips If we work a little, learn a little, and repeat, we can do some pretty impressive things. We don’t, however, like to do this “little” thing. Let’s work a little, talk about what we did, learn a little, and try again. That reduces the misunderstandings. That keeps us from wasting resources by […]

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Tags: Agility · Humility · Learning · People · Work

Linus’ Law

July 17th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Let’s do what we can do bring more people into the solution-providing space. I am going to repeat some things I wrote in a blog post in 2015. In researching today’s post, I found that old post and wondered a bit at how good it was. Anyway, Linus’ Law is: “given enough […]

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Tags: Education · People · Problems · Solutions · Tools

This Is Really Good

July 13th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips This is really good (to someone on some day). And I don’t know who that someone is or when that day is. This blog post is really good. I felt great when I wrote it. The words flew through my fingers onto the screen and to the Internet. Wow! People will love […]

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Tags: Help · People · Purpose · Teaching · Wishes

No, You Don’t ”Know”

July 6th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Sorry, we (you and me) don’t “know” as often as we like to think. When I ask a person a question and their eyes look up, that means… Hah! Silly notion. I know what this means. I know what that means. I know what the other person is doing and thinking and […]

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Tags: Communication · Culture · Knowledge · Learning · People

AI Won’t Replace People

June 22nd, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Sometimes we attribute things we don’t like to things we don’t like. It’s easier that way, even though it isn’t reality. Well, here we have it: AI is replacing people. We can read it in the newspaper. Plain and simple. I link to one newspaper article. I could link to a dozen […]

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Tags: Artificial Intelligence · Communication · Jobs · Management · People · Problems · Work