Working Up

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

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Entries from November 2013

But That’s Your Job

November 28th, 2013 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Further evidence that people tend to do only what they want to do while at work. Years ago, one of the guys in our office went missing. He was safe and sound, but we didn’t know it at the time. He was told to attend a meeting at a motel in another […]

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Tags: Management · People · Work

Government Documents – Shorter Please

November 25th, 2013 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips When it comes to government documents, shorter is better almost all the time. I used to write government documents. I still read government documents. Such is the life of someone who worked for the government, retired, and went to work for companies that compete for government contracts. Here is it, something regarding […]

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Tags: Government · Writing

Missing My Mother

November 21st, 2013 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Dementia in any form removes a person from your life. I miss my mother. She is still alive and, for someone her age, is in remarkably good physical health. She has no aches or pains, has a strong heart, and, except for failed hearing, is in great shape. Her mind doesn’t work […]

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Tags: Family

The Most Important Project in a Person’s Life

November 18th, 2013 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips I cannot overestimate the importance of starting well. What a person does on the first project of their life is out of proportion in importance. This is quick and simple: The most important project in a person’s life is the first project. Why? Because the new person knows nothing about real-world projects. […]

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Tags: Expectations · Management

HealthCare.Gov – An Excellent and Terrible Teaching Example

November 14th, 2013 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Take care when choosing an example for teaching. Often what seem to be great examples are terrible in that people concentrate on the unintended. I have taken a lot of courses related to project management. I have taught a few. I have read a lot of books on project management, and, as […]

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Tags: Communication · Education · General Systems Thinking · Learning · Teaching

The Veto in Restuarants and Government Offices

November 11th, 2013 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips A veto is where one person can say NO, and that over rules a multitude of YESs. Look around and notice the prevalence of the veto. I was in a fast food restaurant early on a recent Saturday morning (old people like me tend to do those things). Three teens were sitting […]

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Tags: Government · Judgment · Management · People

Thick Magazines Still Exist

November 7th, 2013 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips All magazines are thinner than they used to be – not so. Somehow, the IEEE keeps its magazines thick. I have been an IEEE Computer Society member for 30 years (yes, I am that old). Computer is the lead publication of that group. The monthly magazine is still 136 pages long. That […]

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Tags: Communication · Computing · IEEE

The Age of the Decider

November 4th, 2013 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips To understand a non-sensical decision, consider the age of the person deciding. It was the early 1990s (yes, I am that old), we were using Cray and other supercomputers (government program, so we had several), and we were interviewing your programmers. They all gasped to learn that we were programming in FORTRAN […]

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Tags: Choose · Geography · Government