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

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Entries Tagged as 'Improvement'

Typing and Interruptions

April 11th, 2024 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Reducing the time spent typing on the keyboards reduces the number of interruptions. There are new tools that reduce both. I can type fairly fast. At least I give myself credit for that. Like everyone else, I am interrupted while typing. I could estimate number of interruptions per hour or some rate […]

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Tags: Artificial Intelligence · Improvement · Mistakes · Technology · Time · Tools · Writing

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 […]

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

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 […]

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

Let’s Do Meetings Better

December 11th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips We tend to have many meetings—”many” being subjective. Since we do this so often, let try to do it better. I worked for the Federal government for several decades. Government employees meet in groups several times every day. I have also worked for companies on government contracts. We met with the government […]

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Tags: Decide · Improvement · Management · Meetings · Purpose · Simple

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

Accelerate the Learning

October 19th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Learning is good as it leads to better performance and other beneficial things. There are tools available that accelerate learning. Let’s use those. I try to learn. Sometimes I forget to learn. Yes, fatigue clobbers my mind and I simply forget to notice things, store them, and use them. There are tools […]

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Tags: Competence · Energy · Fatigue · Growth · Humility · Improvement · Learning · Thinking · Tools

A Sense of Urgency

October 9th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips We have tools that multiply our productivity. Every age seems to have such tools. Will we have the sense of urgency to use these tools this time around? From what I can find, the screwdriver was invented in the late 1400s. It was created to, of course, turn screws. The screws were […]

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Tags: History · Improvement · Jobs · Purpose · Technology · Urgent · Work

Did My Words Make Sense?

September 4th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips To write is to be misunderstood. Gosh, not very optimistic but it is realistic. We should constantly ask, “Did my words make sense?” “Never mind what it says, we know what we mean,” said an optimist about something we were reading. Yes, we did know what it meant. We read it half-a-dozen […]

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Tags: Change · Clarity · Communication · Improvement · Resources · Time · Writing

DevSecOps: It’s Just What Computer Programmers Do

October 24th, 2022 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Considering DevSecOps—nothing to see here folks. It is just what computer programmers do. Everybody in the software-creating world is doing DevSecOps (development, security, operations). Well, if you are anybody in the everybody, you are doing DevSecOps. If you aren’t doing it, you are a nobody in the everybody. What is DevSecOps? It’s […]

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Tags: Computing · DevOps · General Systems Thinking · Improvement · Programming

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 […]

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Tags: Appearances · Competence · Expertise · Group · Improvement · Observation · Other · People