Working Up

Working Up in Project Management, Systems Engineering, Technology, and Writing

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Entries Tagged as 'Work'

Setting Limits on Tasks

October 29th, 2012 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Some tasks don’t deserve a lot of time to complete, despite how much time I would like to devote to them. I find items that limit my time on task. Some tasks are worth only so much time. Regardless of how much I like the task or how much I feel the […]

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Tags: Design · Work

Lurking in the Hall

October 22nd, 2012 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips In the hall, in the dark corners that cannot be seen by humans, lurks a monster. We, or us, know the monster. It goes by the name “they” or “them.” I suppose this post goes under the category of “something that happens almost daily when ‘we’ talk about our problems.” Someone is […]

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Tags: Communication · Health · People · Work

Work Redefined – Workers, too

October 18th, 2012 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips The definition of work is changing with more people forming distant, loosely connected teams. This requires people who can understand not only the words but the intent of a writer and a speaker. Here is a new definition of work: Work is something we do, not somewhere we go. For years, the […]

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Tags: Change · Communication · Work

Knowing What You are Doing

August 13th, 2012 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips There is no substitute for knowing what you are doing. I love working with people who know what they are doing. They come to the workplace, see challenges in front of them, and eagerly plow into the work. Short pause – I don’t live in LaLaLand. I live and work in the […]

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Tags: Learning · Work

The Ideal Co-Workers

August 9th, 2012 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips I find there are three characteristics I want to see in the people who work with me. There are three things I want to see in the people who work with me: They know what they are doing They have the self-discipline to do it They have the courage to tell the […]

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Tags: People · Work

Less Work, More Success

June 28th, 2012 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips If you manage software development, here is a tip for success: write less software. The above tip for success doesn’t make much sense at first, but humor me by reading the following story (a true story). Once I worked in government, and we hired a company to write software for us. The […]

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Tags: Management · Work

Remember the Chaos

February 9th, 2012 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Every new thing involves a change. A period of chaos comes with every change. If the new thing is to be short-lived, the chaos may require a large percentage of time relative to the short-lived activity. A colleague noted that the estimates for short tasks were often incorrect by large percentages. Here […]

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Tags: Change · Estimation · Work

If It’s Different…

September 20th, 2011 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Technical projects have plenty of opportunities to misunderstand what someone else is doing. Help yourself. If something is different, give it a different name. This is a post about a part of configuration management. But don’t stop reading yet. This makes sense and is not painful. Things change in technical projects. Software […]

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Tags: Communication · Management · Process · Work

Penman$hip

September 8th, 2011 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Sloppy handwriting costs MONEY! I was happy when I moved from 6th grade to 7th grade. The reason was simple – there would be no more penmanship classes. I would get all A s in school and no more C s. Penmanship was, anyways, a made up subject so that girls could […]

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Tags: Work · Writing

Permission to do Your Job

August 15th, 2011 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Recent events bring an old saying to mind: you don’t need permission to do your job. You don’t need permission to do your job1 This thought hit me last week. I was working in a different office and was struggling to get anything done. One of the things that bothered me was […]

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Tags: Web 2.0 · Work