Working Up

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

Working Up header image 4

Entries from March 2024

Questions Without Answers Are the Easy Ones

March 28th, 2024 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Questions without answers are the easy ones to ask and discuss. I recently saw a movie about folks building bombs. Large parts of the movie were discussions among scientists and engineers about building devices that kill people, but also save lives by stopping the killing. Those discussions were easy, much easier than […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Competence · Group · Knowledge · Meetings · Questions · Time

Apology and Behavior

March 25th, 2024 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips I stumble on something that everyone else in the world has already heard. It is still brilliant. The only apology is changed behavior. I heard that on TV the other day. It seems that in various forms, it goes back to ancient times. It was new to me. Still, it is brilliant. […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Authentic · Change · Communication · Ethics · Reaction · Word

Unnecessary Headaches

March 25th, 2024 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Some endeavors are so complicated that headaches are expected. Most endeavors, however, have headaches that are caused by the people involved and are unnecessary. Some endeavors are complicated. That is their nature. Concentration, lots of it, sometimes brings me a headache. I have worked in complicated endeavors and endured the natural and […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Alternatives · Choose · Competence · Health · Management · Problems · Stupid · Thinking

More Words, More Errors

March 21st, 2024 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips It is simple math: the more words presented the more errors present. Rats. There is a big benefit to brevity: fewer errors. One way to consider errors is to look at the number of errors per the number of words. Something like five errors per one-hundred words. That is 95% correct and […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Brevity · Communication · Competence · Error · Expertise · Improvement · Writing

The Landmark

March 18th, 2024 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Meet me at the big oak tree outside of town at dusk. They said something like that in the old Westerns. It makes sense to still do this. There was always a showdown or something in the old Westerns. The big oak tree a mile outside of town at dusk. How did […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Agreement · General Systems Thinking · Planning · Time · Urgent

Philosophy and Reality

March 14th, 2024 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Philosophy and utopia are great until reality punches everything in the nose—philosophically speaking of course. Philosophical discussions are great. They may stretch the mind to see other points of view or possibilities. They may lead to better ways. Philosophy, however, is philosophy and not reality. We need to keep that in mind. […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Culture · Experiment · Fable · Greed · History · Ideas · Reality · Technical Debt

Like Us or Like Some of Us

March 11th, 2024 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips We want AI systems to act like us. Or do we? Perhaps we want AI systems to act like some of us. But who is “us” and who is “not us?” Testing shows that the latest and greatest large language models will generate bad information about political campaigns. That is wrong; those […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Artificial Intelligence · Censorship · Computing · Concepts · General Systems Thinking · Systems

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 […]

[Read more →]

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

Next-Level Everything

March 4th, 2024 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Stretching the mind is generally a good thing. There are many ways to do this, so just do it. Over the years, I have spent hours playing the guitar. If I spend half-an-hour a day playing day after day, what I play starts to resemble jazz. I have some sort of lifetime […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Analysis · Competence · Education · Growth · Improvement · Knowledge · Learning