by Dwayne Phillips In order to accomplish a desired goal, first gather the right people in the right forum. Otherwise, grievous vexation will result. I have something to accomplish. How will I accomplish it? Perhaps I need others to assist. Who? How? What forum? It is easy to have too many people in the room. […]
Wrong People, Wrong Forum
April 10th, 2023 · No Comments
Tags: Decide · Design · People · Questions · Thinking
Not This Place and Time
February 23rd, 2023 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips The persons who are in this place at this time to decide this thing are usually in the wrong place and time and deciding the wrong thing. Let’s decide. We are the deciders. We are in the deciding position because at some time and place in the past we showed how well […]
Tags: Choose · Decide · Learning · Mistakes · People · Time
The Crowd Wins Again
October 20th, 2022 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips Folks out there in the crowd are clobbering the high-tech giants and everyone else they want to clobber. Yet another essay appears about how open-source software projects appear faster than systems produced by high-tech giants full of experts. Computing power is so inexpensive that there are many, many, many folks out there […]
Tags: Economics · General Systems Thinking · Influence · People · Technology
The Buddy
May 30th, 2022 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips It helps to have someone standing next to you. This is a simple, old, and often overlooked aid to working better. A buddy is someone standing next to you whom you assume knows what they are doing. Often, a few moments later, you both realize that you both assumed the other is […]
Tags: Appearances · Competence · Expertise · Group · Improvement · Observation · Other · People
Free for More Meaningful Work
May 2nd, 2022 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips Automation and artificial intelligence promise to take away the bane of some work and make us free for more meaningful work. Do we want that? Automation frees us from that old work that is just the same old same old. We will have time on our hands and be free for more […]
Tags: Artificial Intelligence · People · Respect · Technology · Tools · Vocabulary · Work
How Many People Can You Waste?
April 28th, 2022 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips We have lots of work to do. We have people here to do the work. How many of these people can we waste? I suppose we are still in “the great resignation.” Come back to the office building, now! (please) (pretty please) We have lots of work to do. We have some […]
Tags: Management · People · Please · Remote Work · Work
Discovery as an Unintended Result
April 14th, 2022 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips Doing something that goes beyond what is required often leads to discovery, and discovery may be a wonderful unintended result. Many years ago (in the last century), I was involved in an upgrade to an existing system. There were new requirements that required new capabilities. Some of the computing hardware was to […]
Tags: Alternatives · Design · Learning · People · Requirements · Solutions
It is Still About People
March 10th, 2022 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips Pandemic, hybrid, remote—it is still about people. “Nobody quits companies. They quit managers.”—Satya Nadella, CEO Microsoft How do you manage distributed or remote teams? Same way you manage in any situation. (1) You don’t manage people. You manage work. You lead people. (2) You lead people who are remote the same way […]
Tags: Communication · Leadership · Management · People · Remote Work · Work
Data, Value, Sense, Cents, and People
February 17th, 2022 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips Data seems to be opposite of everything else when it comes to saving it, using it, and producing value. When we use things, they lose value. Drive a car a thousand miles and its loses value, i.e., no one will pay as much for a car with 1,000 miles as they will […]
Tags: Data Science · General Systems Thinking · Money · People
Do or Do not
January 24th, 2022 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips Regardless of position or circumstance, some people do things while others don’t. This appears to be one of those parts of human nature that have puzzled me for years. Given a situation, some persons will talk, think, talk, ignore, and employ just about every verb there is except for the forms of […]
Tags: Competence · Energy · Management · People · Practice