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Entries Tagged as 'Communication'

Important Nonsense

May 22nd, 2017 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips When an otherwise rational person starts speaking nonsense—pay attention as something important is happening. People tell me how important a topic is to them by how they speak to me. Rational, logical, focused—nope. Not those adjectives. I am writing about important topics. When something is important, something burns inside. The heart quickens, […]

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Tags: Breathe · Communication · Consulting · People

The Pre-Meeting

May 18th, 2017 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips The pre-meeting is one of the better techniques for holding a successful meeting. Want to have a “good” meeting, i.e., one where the outcome is to my liking? Hold a pre-meeting. Meet before the meeting. Plan what you and yours will do and say in the meeting. Plan what you and yours […]

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Tags: Communication · Meetings

The Reframe or Perhaps We have this all Backwards

May 8th, 2017 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips One of the more beneficial techniques I have learned is how to reframe a situation or turn it around backwards or upside down. Is it (1) the donors aren’t giving enough money or (2) the leaders aren’t inspiring the donors. I hate my boss, so I should (1) become my own boss […]

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Tags: Change · Communication · Consulting · Reframe

The Steam Roller—What’s in a Name?

April 20th, 2017 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips We still refer to the steam roller even though no one has one such a machine in over a hundred years. So what? Maybe something important. We once used steam rollers to flatten things. They had a steam engine for power. They weighed a lot. They were effective. We quit using steam […]

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Tags: Communication

The Commissioned Trade Study

April 17th, 2017 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips The follies and pitfalls of a trade study. One of the more wasteful things governments, persons who work for governments, do is commission a trade study. Go forth, study something, and report back to us. Time passes. Persons run about asking questions and reading readings. The money flows. Keyboards clickety-clack, spots appear […]

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Tags: Analysis · Communication · Customer · Expectations

The Opposite of Synergy—Yet Another Example

April 13th, 2017 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Often, the individual members of a group don’t understand what the group has decided. This is wonderful. I found a discussion online where persons who care about words were trying to invent a word for the opposite of synergy. No one suggested the obvious—the US Congress. Politics aside, or maybe politics of […]

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Tags: Communication · Competence · Decide

And Then What Happens?

March 27th, 2017 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips There is a fundamental question to ask in analyzing and engineering systems. Why don’t we use it more often? A: We put this into the system. B: And then what happens? A: Well, now the system can do this great function for the users. B: And then what happens? A: For one […]

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Tags: Adults · Communication · General Systems Thinking · Questions · Systems · Thinking

The Final Nail in the Coffin for the Old Media

March 13th, 2017 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Facebook was the end of the old media. Facebook didn’t start the downfall, but it ended it for good. Mark Zuckerburg recently released a new manifesto for Facebook. The mainstream media is dead. Facebook didn’t kill that big, bad, old mainstream media, it just finished it. Of all things, talk radio on […]

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Tags: Adapting · Blog · Change · Communication

Software Systems Engineering and Agile Development

March 2nd, 2017 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Agile development is not an excuse for knowing what you did, why you did it, and how you did it. You’re doing agile development. You hold a meeting to start a sprint (different methods use different names for this). You sprint! You meet again at the end of the sprint. What did […]

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Tags: Agility · Analysis · Communication · Engineering · Systems

Persons, Products, and How We Discuss Them

February 13th, 2017 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips We thank the person. We comment on the product. And we let everyone know that is what we do here. Persons accomplish the work in endeavors. Persons use tools, sometimes they are really cool and expensive ones, but persons ultimately accomplish the work. The outcome of the work is a product (sometimes […]

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Tags: Authentic · Communication · People · Respect · Work