Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

The one benefit of personality surveys that I have always seen is that people gather and talk.

I have been part of organizations, yes, several of them, that initiated big projects wherein everyone answers personality questions. MBTI is one such set of questions; strength finders is another. I have yet to be part of an organization that completed its grand plan for the use of such sets of questions.

Regardless of plans and lack of success, there is one benefit to these question sets that I have seen in every instance:

Persons gather and talk.

Persons learn that their colleagues are persons, too. They learn that someone else likes german shepherds, roses, or Sherlock Holmes. They learn that their fears and dislikes don’t exist. They learn that they can work with that odd person across the room who always had that funny look on their face and wore the wrong kind of shoes.

Anything that helps persons understand the other persons will help an organization in its endeavors.

by Dwayne Phillips

People with no experience in a situation do the unthinkable. Often, the unthinkable leads to the impossible, and we want to know about the impossible.

Kids do things that are just, well, I struggle to describe them as they are out of the ordinary. Here are a few examples:

• My oldest son once chipped a tooth with the knob end of a baseball bat while hitting a baseball. I still don’t understand how that is physically possible.
• College students write and submit long papers, but don’t write their name on the paper.
• A big brother is given a “time out,” and his little sister punishes herself because she always imitates him.

I could go on. The point is that kids do things that make no sense. Their inexperience leaves a void in knowledge.

No knowledge is often the best kind of knowledge. It leads to discoveries, to knowledge that no one has.

My advice:

Spend time around kids and other inexperienced people and learn from them.

by Dwayne Phillips

Do not take anyone in your life for granted.

I am writing this post on December 2nd. Such is the wonder of WordPress and all that.

It happens that Christmas Day falls on a Thursday this year, and Thursday is one of the days of the week that I post to this blog. Hence, something different.

There are people who are important to me who I saw last year at Christmas, but I won’t see this year. They died unexpectedly during the year.

Then there is my mother. She suffers from dementia. My wish for Christmas this year—a wish not granted—is that I could spend an hour talking to my mother with her full mental faculties. I wish I could tell her about the last five years and share with her the joy of life these five years.

This hasn’t been a very happy Christmas Day blog post, has it? We all have people who are important in our lives—I wish that on everyone. Nothing and no one guarantees that any of these people will be here to see the next Christmas or even the next dawn. Never take these people for granted.

by Dwayne Phillips

When you write something (anything), also write your name and the date.

This is pretty simple, but usually neglected. Always write your name and the date next to anything you write. If you are writing in a notebook with your name on the cover, it may be sufficient to write just the date. If what you write is significant, you should write your name on the page next to the significant item.

If you are working or playing on your own, writing your name and the date shows that you own the words. That could be vitally important one day.

If you are working under the pay of someone else, you are claiming the idea. That doesn’t mean you own it, but it makes life and work much easier for everyone else who are also under the pay of someone else. They now know who to seek when a question arises.

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 leads to the sweet spot.  The sweet spot is that area in a system where you are a little less than the optimum—a little less than the extreme.

Simple enough, right?

No, it isn’t. Often systems, at least systems that are worth anything, have N dimensions. The sweet spot is a place among those N dimensions.

When N is 2, life is easy. We can draw two axes and see the sweet spot clearly.

When N is 3, life is a little more difficult, but we can draw three axes and see a 3-dimensional spot that is sweet.

When N is 4, well, too bad. We can’t see in four dimensions. Some people can create a concept in their head that works for them, but no one else.

Four is a small number, and the sweet spot breaks at that point. Real-life systems have N much larger than four. We haven’t yet understood how to find the sweet spot  in the great majority of our endeavors.

Sorry if you expected a solution from me.

by Dwayne Phillips

Communicating can be reduced to one simple question. Answering that question is the pursuit that inspires me.

I have an idea in my head; I have a feeling in my heart.

Here is the crux of communication:

How can I affect the other person?

I love to try to answer that question. I love the figure-it-out part. What is the approach, the technique, the medium, the everything that encompasses the crux question?

by Dwayne Phillips

Writing, like most endeavors and systems, has a hierarchy. There is a trade-off between resources spent and quality.

I have a writing hierarchy. It has something to do with a trade-off of time and quality. My hierarchy is basically:

1. jot on a napkin
2. note in my journal
3. my daybook
4. blog posts
5. paid posts and articles
6. books

Posts like this one are given to the world at no cost. I hope they generate interest in paid writing, but most of the time they don’t.

Paid writing is rare these days. Nevertheless, I spend more thought, time, and effort on those.

by Dwayne Phillips

Before doing anything else—think. Yes, this is old advice, but it still works.

Process, process, process. The world uses Agile processes now. (At least those people whose job it is to tell everyone else what their organization does tells the world that they are Agile. I tend to doubt that they actually are Agile, but that is me.) The world used to be Spiral process or was it Evolutionary process or something. It certainly wasn’t Waterfall process as we all know how stupid that was or at least how stupid it was to do things stupidly even though we weren’t following the Waterfall process.

Be all that as they were, we all use one process or another. Process is simply the things we do, and we all tend to do something.

So now I come to state the Zero-th step of any process:

Before doing anything, think about what you will do.

Not earth shattering; not unique, and sadly not practiced often enough.

A few years ago, I wrote a book about managing human endeavors. In that book, I framed endeavors using People, Process, and Product. The process an organization should use depends on the product that the people are trying to build. If the people are expert and experienced in the product, e.g., a word processor, they should use a simple and efficient process. If the people are smart but inexperienced in the product, they should use a process that allows for experiments and learning. Again, this isn’t earth shattering or unique, but then again it isn’t often practiced.

My view of managing human endeavors requires the zero-th step of any process. Someone must think about the current situation, i.e., the people and the product, before choosing a process.

One problem is that most of us like to start fast. Thinking prevents the fast start, but it usually helps with a successful end.

You choose. oooops, choosing requires some thought at the beginning and that…

by Dwayne Phillips

One method of writing that has worked for me is to sketch a picture or diagram and then describe it.

I have used this method of writing for years. I needed the assistance of others to understand that this is what I was doing.

Here is the method:

1. sketch a picture or diagram
2. describe it in writing

This isn’t complicated. I guess the simplicity helps the method work. I have used it in non-fiction and fiction.

You can be more sophisticated by putting a photograph in front of you and describing it. Of course you could go to an art gallery and describe works of fine art.

by Dwayne Phillips

One way to write is to first write a list of questions, set the questions some place you can see them, and answer all the questions.

I continue to work with college students on their writing, and they continue to teach me.

A recent assignment the students were working involved answering a set of questions about a given technology. It is amazing how complicated the students made the assignment. Their circuitous approaches to the assignment helped me clarify:

the question and answer method of writing

Here it is:

1. write a list of questions
2. place the list where you can see it
3. write the answers to the questions

This method works better for non-fiction, informational writing. It also works well for non-fiction essays. It also works well for fiction.

Hmmm, I think that covers just about all forms of writing. Maybe something has escaped me at the moment.