Working Up

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

Working Up header image 4

Entries Tagged as 'Work'

The Meeting Is Over, Now

October 12th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Once a meeting ends, the after meeting begins and the real work is done. Can we do this better? I’ve seen it a thousand times—literally a thousand times. I’ve attended that many meetings. The meeting has its agenda and participants. The meeting is conducted. We are finished. People stay in the room […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Adapting · Change · Learning · Management · Meetings · Thinking · Work

A Sense of Urgency

October 9th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips We have tools that multiply our productivity. Every age seems to have such tools. Will we have the sense of urgency to use these tools this time around? From what I can find, the screwdriver was invented in the late 1400s. It was created to, of course, turn screws. The screws were […]

[Read more →]

Tags: History · Improvement · Jobs · Purpose · Technology · Urgent · Work

Will It Scale?

September 28th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips The infamous question in the title might as well be, “What can we do to kill this good idea?” We found something that works well for. We have used it several times. We intend to keep using it. Then someone asks the deadly question, “Will it scale?” They want to know when […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Adapting · Ideas · Learning · Management · Scale · Work

Rehearsing for the Rehearsal

August 28th, 2023 · No Comments

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. […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Learning · Management · Patterns · Planning · Practice · Process · Review · Success · Thinking · Work

Work a Little, Learn a Little

August 3rd, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips If we work a little, learn a little, and repeat, we can do some pretty impressive things. We don’t, however, like to do this “little” thing. Let’s work a little, talk about what we did, learn a little, and try again. That reduces the misunderstandings. That keeps us from wasting resources by […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Agility · Humility · Learning · People · Work

AI Won’t Replace People

June 22nd, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Sometimes we attribute things we don’t like to things we don’t like. It’s easier that way, even though it isn’t reality. Well, here we have it: AI is replacing people. We can read it in the newspaper. Plain and simple. I link to one newspaper article. I could link to a dozen […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Artificial Intelligence · Communication · Jobs · Management · People · Problems · Work

Abbreviations

June 19th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips This is another fundamental of written communications that we seem to have forgotten—the humble abbreviation. Let’s abbreviate: The last item in the list is confusing, but given the context we always know what that means, right? Sorry, we don’t. I contend that we should not use abbreviations any longer. 98.6% of the […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Brevity · Clarity · Tools · Work · Writing

A Basic: Document Control

May 15th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips This is a basic practice. It is unfortunate that many have either forgotten or never knew this practice concerning documents. I find a document on the disk drive farm or network or whatever it is we call these things today. There are a jillion files out there, but I find the document […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Change · Chaos · Management · Work

The Stupid Hunters (still hunting down stupid everywhere)

May 8th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Aha! I was sort of right. Now companies have teams of folks hunting down stupid in their systems to keep the world safe from stupid. Way back in 2015, I wrote a blog post about being a stupid hunter. This is not a hunter who is stupid, but a hunter whose job […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Analysis · Artificial Intelligence · Competence · Stupid · Systems · Technology · Testing · Visibility · Work

Leading and Managing

April 27th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Someone is paid to lead the people and manage the work. They are paid to answer, “Yes, but how are they going to do that?” Work can be difficult to accomplish at times. And there are times when you say, “This isn’t good enough. It must be better.” A well-meaning person replies, […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Conversation · Leadership · Management · Work