Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips The message to a person should be the same as the message about a person. What I say to a person is the same as what I say about a person. At least it should be. In other words, I say the same thing when the person is in the room as […]

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by Dwayne Phillips “Are you a people person?” is one of the most moronic questions ever asked. What is more important to me, people or projects? What is more important to me, people or products? People or things? These are silly questions. If a building is on fire, and I can only save a product […]

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by Dwayne Phillips For some reason (and we have a lot of these reasons), we just let things go when we know better. Yes, that thing doesn’t work right, but you know, we just don’t fix it because… I don’t like fixing things It is someone else’s problem, they broke it or they installed it […]

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by Dwayne Phillips The arrival and departure of persons has a major influence on who we are and what we do. Every person who walks in the door changes the organization. The same is true for every person who walks out the door—they change the organization. Every entering and departing person changes who we are […]

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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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by Dwayne Phillips There are alternatives to replacing your hated boss with yourself. The title of this post came to my attention recently. It was part of one of those “Give me your money and I will make your life so much better” ads. If you hate your boss, you can quit your job, start […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Shortage of qualified applicants? A myth. Here is one of the explanations. Sorry if this exposes what you wear under your kilt. There is a shortage of… qualified programmers qualified analysts qualified engineers qualified qualifiers that is why we want more fill-in-the-blank-with-magical-government-magic. Listen to what companies say: “We can’t find qualified fill-in-the-blank-persons.” […]

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by Dwayne Phillips I recommend an organization for the future or work as we know it. This is the new company. It is an agile team that has worked together on many software projects. The Team has learned much on all these past projects. The Team has become high performing (it “jelled” a long time […]

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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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by Dwayne Phillips Sometimes we have to update the technology even when old technology still does the job. Requirements are real. We work to meet requirements in systems. Once the requirements are met, that is it. But what about the people? Many years ago, I worked with a system that used old technology. It was […]

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