Working Up

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

Working Up header image 4

Entries Tagged as 'Work'

Things I Don’t Want to Know

April 24th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips There are things I don’t want to know. Knowing those things means I have to do some work that I just don’t want to do. Life is full of headaches. There are more than enough headaches for each day. I don’t need any more headaches. Then some well-meaning person walks in the […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Health · Learning · Management · Multitasking · Resources · Work

Why People Hate IT at Work

April 17th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips The systems we use at work are woefully behind what we use at home. This is especially true if we work in a government organization. At the time I wrote this post, OpenAI demonstrated their GPT-4 with ChatGPT. That means I see how to summarize lots of things and understand what is […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Artificial Intelligence · Information · Technical Debt · Technology · Work

Culture and Size

March 30th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips A simple equation provides some insight into how culture must change with the number of people in the group. Years ago, the late author and consultant Jerry Weinberg told me of a little equation he used to note the shifts in culture in groups of people. The equation is 3N. If that […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Adults · Culture · Meetings · Work

Do and Claim, in That Order

March 6th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips There are many endeavors in which it is important to do something before talking about doing it. Have an idea for a book? Great. Don’t pitch the idea to publishers. They will expect you to come back with 90% of the book in hand. Then they will talk to you about you […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Concepts · Ideas · Intellectual Property · Resources · Stories · Tools · Work

First Comes Love, Then Comes Marriage, …

February 20th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Events occur in a set order, unless they don’t. Thought is encouraged. The title is from a nursery rhyme (origin unknown by me). The third event is a baby in a baby carriage. Events occur in a set order. Breakfast-lunch-dinner. Entree then desert. Eat breakfast, then brush your teeth (or is that […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Design · Learning · Rest · Systems · Testing · Thinking · Work

Job Interviews: Can You Learn?

February 13th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Most job interviews center on one question, “What do you know?” Here’s a suggestion for a new central question, “Can you learn?” I don’t like job interviews. The folks interviewing me are usually quite pleasant. They want to know what I know. The central question is, “What do you know?” That question […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Jobs · Knowledge · Learning · Questions · Work

We Don’t Have to Write It All

January 9th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips If AI wrote this, is that okay? The question isn’t that difficult. In the past few months, we have all sorts of artificial intelligence or machine learning sites “writing” things for us. Well, this isn’t that intelligent or learned (in my humble opinion), but clever mimicry. Still it is quite useful. Why […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Artificial Intelligence · Concepts · Ideas · Information · Intellectual Property · Research · Work · Writing

The Real Work

November 24th, 2022 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Busy at work? But are we doing the real work? Consider for a moment the “fast food industry” in America. I think we Americans invented this endeavor. What are the key words? I believe #1 is “industry” and #2 is “fast.” The concept of “food” is … well, not so important. This […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Appearances · Authentic · Employment · Practice · Work

Do Worst First

November 21st, 2022 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Lots of things to do. Which do I do first? Perhaps I go with the worst first. When my sons were little, they had tactics about the order in which they ate their food at dinner. One tactic was “worst first” in which they ate their least favorite food first so that […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Alternatives · Decide · Energy · General Systems Thinking · Work

Assuming It was Correct

November 14th, 2022 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Take care when assuming that something was done correctly at some time in the past. “I’ll copy this, modify it, and move on,” said a brave and trusting person. Perhaps “this” was done correctly in the past. Copying and modifying is a good, time-saving tactic. What, however, if this was done incorrectly […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Appearances · Change · General Systems Thinking · Systems · Work