Working Up

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

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Entries Tagged as 'Leadership'

Increments, Perfection, Fear, Candor, and Pride

February 16th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Today’s practice of delivering software and systems emphasizes continuous delivery. Today’s practice, however, fails at this. Technology is not the problem. CI/CD is continuous integration and continuous delivery (or deployment). Work everyday. As each little increment of capability is finished, deliver it. Perhaps we deliver every day and perhaps several times every […]

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Tags: Communication · DevOps · Expectations · Experiment · Honesty · Ideas · Leadership · Technology

What Work?

October 13th, 2022 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips A recent major survey shows that managers and the managed disagree on what work is and isn’t. Microsoft recently surveyed 20,000 persons across 11 countries about work. The result: 87% of the managed felt they worked as, or more, efficiently from home 80% of managers felt that at-home workers weren’t working Here […]

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Tags: Alternatives · Employment · Leadership · Management · Remote Work · Work

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 […]

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Tags: Communication · Leadership · Management · People · Remote Work · Work

Welcome Back to the Office (?)

August 12th, 2021 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Folks long for the good old days. That includes rich and famous CEOs. Tim Cook is ready for Apple’s workforce to return to the office building. Many in Apple’s workforce don’t want to return to the office building. Tim Cook is ready for Apple’s workforce to return to the office building. Did […]

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Tags: Apple · Employment · Expectations · Leadership · Remote Work · Work

Of Course They were doing That

July 15th, 2021 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips We sometimes are surprised at what some persons will do. We shouldn’t be. A recent story reminds us of an oft-repeated story: people will do that. Yes, even that. The recent story is about how some persons working at Facebook used their inside administrative privileges to “spy” on other persons. There were […]

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Tags: Accountability · Excuses · Leadership · Management · Privacy · Respect

The Bad Thing about TED Talks

March 11th, 2021 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Every now and then, someone shows how well you can do something. In rare situations, everyone else improves. Most of the time, however, not so much. I like to watch TED talks. They are so goooooood. Twenty minutes. Every sentence full of content. Just enough visuals, but not too many. Relevant topics. […]

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Tags: Communication · Expectations · Expertise · Improvement · Leadership

The Winner is…

March 8th, 2021 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips The “winner” will be declared by fallible persons with prejudices and favorites (just like us). Surely we can do better than this. Right? Surely, all us smart people can put our heads together and create a better community, a better consensus. Alas, not this year. We’re all working from home, at least […]

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Tags: Change · Leadership · Learning · Listening · Management

The First Step

October 8th, 2020 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips The first step, if taken carefully, eliminates almost all other directions from consideration and frees the mind for everything else. I’ve read about trackers, i.e., those persons who are assigned to find someone who is lost. They find people lost in the woods. The most important thing the tracker does is to […]

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Tags: Clarity · Leadership · Management · Planning

Find the Opportunity

June 18th, 2020 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Just as every event provides a learning, every event provides an opportunity. The choice to see and seize it is ours. The times are a troubling. What’s new? Everything is new; nothing is new. The times present us with the choice to shrug or to learn. We are paying the tuition by […]

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Tags: Accountability · Choose · Humility · Leadership · Learning · Notice · Observation

Light Bulbs, Anything Else, and Optimal Performance

January 13th, 2020 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips The humble light bulb reminds us that we want good things, but “good” changes depending on the person and the purpose. The light bulb is going to save the planet. Perhaps destroy it. I confuse the two sometimes. The incandescent bulb is inefficient. It is if we are considering the amount of […]

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Tags: Choose · Government · Leadership · Requirements