Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips Here is another term that people tend to confuse in the world of building and using systems. I can connect my Panasonic camera to my Apple computer quite easily. Both systems have USB ports. I simply connect the two with a standard USB cable. Wow! Magic! Who cares? Now lets consider connecting […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Sometimes you just want a system to be operating in some usable state. You will come back later and finish the job. Some 21st century software companies called it “good enough software.” The idea was that you had software that did something useful for the user. Once it reached that state, you […]

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by Dwayne Phillips I review a requirements-management scheme that indicates no requirements management. I once worked in an organization that built systems. Everyone worked very hard and very long hours. There was one problem: We never delivered a single system Why not? The problem was with managing requirements. Each month we held a requirements meeting. […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Go to the optimum, then back off a quarter turn on the knob. There you are. One principle of technology and systems in general is not to operate at the extreme. Go to the extreme, but move back just a bit towards the ordinary. Odd things occur at the extremes. This behavior […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Today’s smartphone bears a striking resemblance to yesterday’s transistor radio. Okay, yell at me. I will wait. Now that you’ve screamed your lungs out, let’s compare today’s smartphone to yesterdays transistor radio. In case you are young(er) and don’t know what a transistor radio is, see this page. Attributes that the smartphone […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Politics often delves into hyperbole to make a point. Hyperbole could be the death of science. A recent poll (don’t you love it when someone starts with that phrase?) shows that Americans view scientists as competent but not trustworthy. What’s up with that? Politics. IMHO, scientists are depending too much on politicians […]

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by Dwayne Phillips A look at 21st century Digital Government shows that government is still decades behind. Look at this ground-breaking document from our Federal government. It describes how to achieve 21st-century excellence in IT services for the citizen. Okay, enough of the hyperbole. Let’s look at the document. It shows IT in three layers: […]

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by Dwayne Phillips We often create systems and then complain how persons act in our systems. Many years ago, I attended college. I often heard professors complain, You aren’t interested in learning, all you are only in search of the almighty grade! I found that us students were guilty. We did worry about our grades. […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Back in the 1970s, we wished for useful things built into the bodies of our calculators. Today, some of us old persons wish for the same in the bodies of our smartphones. I was looking at the back of my smartphone. I remember the back of my big Texas Instruments calculator from […]

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by Dwayne Phillips When you consider it, systems engineers do something that everyone already does. Right? Systems Engineers do a simple task: they ensure that all customer requirements are built, tested, and delivered. They keep lists and tables and all sorts of things that trace all work back to every customer requirement. So why do […]

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