Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips There are many methods to use to reach a conclusion. Since they all involve fallible people like me, most of the methods are fallible. Expect requests for further study. Anticipate them and ask others to study alongside you from the beginning. Arriving at a conclusion is a primary task of an engineer, […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Managers are everywhere. The vast majority of them perform their jobs poorly. Still, we work for these bad managers. Why? I am reading a manuscript written by Johanna Rothman on managing project portfolios. I expect this to be a fine book when published. It is for people who have more work than […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Most meetings are a waste of time and most meetings are conducted by educated, intelligent, and accomplished people. These contradictions fit when I realized that the people conducting the worthless meetings simply didn’t have the energy to make them worthwhile. I needed another tact besides sighing and suffering. I have sat in […]

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by Dwayne Phillips As a manager, I once believed that life could not occur without my presence. I killed myself to be at everything. I learned that was false. This was a blow to my ego that I was around people who were competent enough to work without me. The biggest college basketball game of […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Small tasks should need small effort. Large tasks should need large effort. Those nuggets of management wisdom are often wrong. I find that task effort relates to task difficulty, and task difficulty relates to the experience of the people on hand. I recently helped some people remodel a person’s house. We did […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Some system developments take a long time and drain people. You walk in to work and there is no energy. A demonstration of capability is one way to awaken people and bring focus to a project. Several years ago, I was working with about a hundred people on a large ($100 million) […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Bringing about change in a group of people is perhaps the most difficult task anyone can undertake. An old fable sheds light on one technique for encouraging change. I wish I knew the origin of this little fable. I hope that I relay it well enough. Anyways, here goes: Once upon a […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Urgency and energy are great qualities to have in the people on your project. Urgency can be instilled in people via careful and thoughtful motivation. Energy may come in the door with some people. Given either of these, work moves quickly. Without them, work doesn’t move. I have become my father. That […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Author and consultant Ed Yourdon is updating his book “Death March.” He is working on the book online as a type of blog. You can participate by reading and commenting. The instructions for joining are here. I have joined in the discussion. I like this type of thing – reading something written […]

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Managers and others in high position don’t “just know” how to work well with people. They have to learn it. Some of the rest of us have to learn that the managers have to learn. by Dwayne Phillips I kept my four-month-old grandson for a couple of hours yesterday while my wife and daughter-in-law went […]

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