Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips Let’s turn these nouns into verbs. Let’s not. We are going to modernize the application to optimize it and maximize our efforts. — Wrote someone who shouldn’t have been writing In other words, we want maximum free time. Let’s make the application modern and optimal. Turning a noun into a verb (I […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Just use those other words. “In other words…,” spoken by someone frustrated with their attempts to write or speak. “What I’m trying to say is…,” also spoken by someone frustrated with their attempts to write or speak. There is something about communicating in either the written or spoken word. After fumbling, grumbling, […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Want more efficient and more productive government? The solution is simple, but probably won’t be used. Once every now and then, someone comes along and tries to make government more efficient and more productive. Note: this means more efficient and more productive than it is now. This does not mean truly efficient […]

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by Dwayne Phillips This is a question we should constantly ask. Try the simplest thing to be, to do, to have. Several years ago, I posed a question to participants at a conference session I was facilitating. The design problem was about storing information from a business. I wanted a design of a system that […]

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by Dwayne Phillips This is a tried and true method of gathering requirements and specifying systems. Imagine you had a thousand assistants. There are various methods of gathering requirements and specifying systems. A basic one is to imagine a thousands assistants awaiting your request. If you had a thousand assistants, what would you have them […]

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by Dwayne Phillips I am happy to learn that embarrassment still exists. We still aspire. I recently read an article about how people are not asking Siri and the like questions in public by voice. They type the questions instead of saying them aloud. They are a bit embarrassed to let other people hear their […]

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by Dwayne Phillips It is wonderful to see a small child see something wonderful. I sit in Starbucks typing these words on a Saturday morning. Now and then someone enters with a small child—a child small enough that they have to stand on their toes and stretch their neck to see what is in the […]

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by Dwayne Phillips When building systems, reduce the amount of intricate typing required by users. Sometimes we forget this and require too much hand jamming. I ran across the phrase “hand jamming” recently at work. I hadn’t heard that in years. I was happy to hear that some people still knew it and knew what […]

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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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by Dwayne Phillips We tend to want complex things. Too simple shows that we didn’t work hard, right? No, that is usually wrong. It happened again at work this week… Someone wanted a couple of sentences that summarized a project. The project had been running for ten years and is a success. Lots of people […]

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