Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips Sometimes the better solution is to not provide a solution. After all, who decided that this was a problem and I was the person to solve it? “Here is your problem, and here is my solution. Use it,” said a confident problem solver. I’m a smart guy. I can see things others […]

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by Dwayne Phillips In our brave new world of remote working and such, one thing remains: evidence of work. A: What are you doing? B: Working. A: What have you done? B: I read three books and six papers as assigned. A: Uh, why should I believe that? There is no evidence of work. All […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Back to a basic: write with nouns and verbs. It brings us closer to brevity and clarity. Those are pretty good places to be. I was reminded of this short and powerful writing tip this past week. And yes, it was from Strunk and White. They used the title of the post […]

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by Dwayne Phillips There is the meta-plan or the plan about the plan. There is the meta-rehearsal or the rehearsal for the rehearsal. There are many other meta-this-and-that. They are quite useful. My wife and I have been married since 1983 (40 years as of the writing of this post). I recall our wedding rehearsal. […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Sometimes it is better to see the Eiffel Tower from across town instead on being on the Eiffel Tower and seeing the slums. I’ve seen many photographs of the great pyramids in Egypt. I have only seen a few photographs of the city next to the great pyramids. Yikes. I prefer the […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Each generation laments how no one recognizes how special they are. Well, sort of. Times change, ya’ know? I just saw another one of these things online. It was a black and white photo of kids on their bicycles in the street. We were the last generation to ride bikes in the […]

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by Dwayne Phillips You have met with a group of smart persons. You all worked hard. You decided what to do. Now, do you do it or… You gathered with a group of smart persons and worked hard. Discussion, question, discussion, alternative, question, answer, do it all over again. Decision. How do you take a […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Everything happens for a reason (or two) or perhaps things happen and we create reasons to explain them. Funny how we often work backwards. Something happens and we proclaim, “I knew it would happen. We had this and that and they are reasons for what happened.” Few say these reasons before the […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Are we ready to do this? Long ago I participated in meetings that were called things like: Operational Readiness Review Test Readiness Review Contract Readiness Review Trip Readiness Review fill-in-the-blank Several persons sat together and asked, “Are we ready to do this?” Regardless of what “this” was, we discussed the answer. Sometimes […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Let us consider the humble design review. It is still valuable. I have an idea. I think it will solve a problem or improve a situation. It is just an idea, but let’s try it. Perhaps—before we try it—let’s discuss it. This discussion of an idea before trying it is a design […]

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