Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Of all the things I have done recently, the one that is garnering the most interest online is Pinterst.

Go figure.

I don’t understand this, but people are paying attention to my “pins” (I think that is the right term) on Pinterest. (I just realized that Pinterest is a combination of “pin” and “interest.” I am pretty slow on this.)

I had heard of Pinterest. I didn’t know anything about it, so to learn, I started an account. I figured out that you “pin” pictures that you like. I have been pinning pictures of workspaces, desks, and computer setups that I see and like.

People are re-pinning and liking my Pinterest pins. People are doing this more often than they are following me on Twitter, buying my books and short stories, commenting on my blogs, and everything else. They are doing this Pinterest stuff more than all that other stuff combined.

Go figure.

by Dwayne Phillips

Binary decisions – choose either A or B, nothing else – can be difficult. Tossing a coin, but not looking at it, is a useful technique.

I learned this technique a few years ago at a conference. You are confronted with a decision with two choices: A or B. You are uncertain as to which you want.

Flip a coin

Yes, flip a coin just like when you were a child. Except here, you don’t look at the coin.

While the coin is in the air, a burning sensation in your heart will tell you which choice you really want.

Put the coin back in your pocket. Never, I repeat, never look at the coin to see what way it would have taken you.

by Dwayne Phillips

Contemplative writing is a valuable practice. It is far more valuable and far less used than shallow meetings.

In my 28 years working for the government, I attended countless meetings where much of nothing was discussed. I avoided far more if these meetings than I attended. Meetings are a characteristic of government at all levels. The results of these government meetings are obvious.

Alternatives?

Author and consultant Jerry Weinberg offered me one.

Contemplative Writing

This practice stems from writing in a journal. The basic procedure is:

1. Stop
2. Sit at a table that has a blank sheet of paper and a pencil
3. Breathe
4. Think
5. Write your thoughts – questions, alternatives, possible outcomes
6. Write your feelings
7. Go back to step 3 and repeat

This practice requires:

1. chair
2. table
3. blank sheet of paper
4. pencil
5. time

Items 1 through 4 are plentiful and inexpensive. Item 5 is often cited as nonexistent. We can find time if we cancel a few shallow meetings.

Hmmm, now we have no more excuses.

by Dwayne Phillips

People often enter business relationships without first answering one question: If I fire you, will that affect our personal relationship?

Business relationships are about business. They involve contracts and agreements:

You will do this

and

I will do that.

This is pretty simple when you consider these terms. This is pretty complicated when you have an 0ther-than-business relationship before entering a business relationship.

Here are a few other-than-business relationships:

• We are next door neighbors
• Our kids play soccer, are in the marching band, and so on together
• We attend the same church
• We are family
• You are entering a business relationship with one of my children or other relatives

Questions to ask before entering a business relationship:

• Will we still chat at the mail box if you fire me?
• Will I move my kid to a different soccer team if you fire me?
• Will I still attend the same church as you if you fire me?
• Will I still talk to you at family events if you fire me?
• Will I still be friends or whatever if you fire my child?

Don’t enter a business relationship with a person if:

• These questions sound icky
• You cannot imagine that your friend would fire you
• You cannot separate business and other relationships

by Dwayne Phillips

We tend to treasure failed tools. It is as if the tool becomes part of me. One remedy is to realize that a tool I use is just that, a tool I use. It is not me.

I don’t know how many times I have seen it. A person is standing at a white board talking to the others in the room. They grasp a dry-erase marker from the white board’s tray, remove the cap, put the marker to the white board, drag it about, and learn that the marker is depleted of ink. Next, and this is the part that makes no sense, they put the cap back on the depleted marker, and put it back in the white board’s tray.

Guess what? This happens again and again. The next person attempts to use the depleted marker and puts it back in the tray for the next person and the next person and the next person.

Why doesn’t someone toss the depleted marker into the trash?

Now let’s extend this past silly little dry-erase markers.

People don’t discard failed tools. Instead, we tend to use them more and more.

We try the same thing over and over. Education is broken in America. The solution is to add money and lengthen the school year, i.e., use the failed tool more and more. Meetings are unproductive. The solution is to have more meetings so we can communicate better, i.e., use the failed tool more and more.

For some reason, we attach ourselves to the tools we use. They become part of us, and we cannot discard a part of us.

Here is a solution:

Realize that a tool is a tool. A tool is not me.

Hmmm, let’s try that one. The dry-erase marker is depleted and useless. I am not the dry-erase marker. I am not depleted of ideas. I can discard the marker and continue working. I am a teacher. The school year is not me. Perhaps the school year is already too long. I can reduce the school year without reducing me.

Hmmm, separating myself from stuff around me allows me to choose what stuff I use and what stuff I discard. I’ll have to remember that one.

by Dwayne Phillips

The foundation of risk management is asking, “What could possibly go wrong?” Some people, however, shrug when asked while others make a list of a million things.

A recent chat:

Person A: What do you know about risk management?

Me: A “risk” is a problem that hasn’t occurred yet.

Person A: What do you do in risk management?

Me: Ask, “What could possibly go wrong?” Record all the answers. Plan for what you would do if something actually went wrong. Watch for tips of impending wrong-ness. Implement your plans.

The conversation ended there. I thought more about it later and concluded that there is one big problem with risk management:

The person answering the question, “What could possibly go wrong?”

There are people who shrug. “Nothing,” is there answer. Nothing? “Sure,” they continue, “nothing. There are no potential problems here.”

Then there are people like me. “How many things do you want me to write? Ten? A hundred? A thousand?” People like me see possible problems every where with every thing and every one. Here is a generic list:

• people fall ill
• people quit their job
• people become angry and pout
• people don’t like each other
• some people are jerks
• the weather becomes bad and everyone stays home
• the roof leaks and destroys our computers and backups
• an earthquake tumbles the building and destroys all our work

And I haven’t mentioned anything about the product being impossible to build.

I guess the problem with risk management is much like all the other problems with project management.

The source of all problems is people.

Ask the fundamental question of the right person. Do a lot of filtering on the answer.

by Dwayne Phillips

There is a difference between a gift and a contract. I have met many people who fail to notice that.

Persons give other persons gifts. Many of these gifts are not gifts – they are contracts.

Here are a few signs that gifts are contracts. In contracts, the giver says something like:

• I’m giving this to you if…
• I’m giving this to you so you can…
• This gift is for…

Contracts have conditions.

If the receiver does not follow the conditions, the giver is angry or something like that. If you give something to a person and are upset with what they do, you didn’t give a gift. Instead, you had a contract.

Gifts are unconditional.

• Here is some money. (Do with it what you want)

The words in parentheses are usually not said. The giver has no regrets regardless of what the receiver does.

There is a difference between giving something with conditions and giving something unconditionally. If you have conditions, state them. If the receiver cannot live with the conditions, don’t give.

by Dwayne Phillips

A common malady of persons in government is to predict the future of commercial computing. No one seems to learn the folly of this practice.

Recently, the Administration announced a few things about the future of computers in education. There is a five-year plan from someone about how they are going to put digital textbooks in the hands of students.

First, predicting that some students in America will use some digital textbooks in five years is like predicting that the sun will rise somewhere in America in the next five years. It is so certain that it contains no news.

Second, predicting the future of commercial computing seems to be a common malady among government employees.

When I was in government, I worked with one person who annually predicted the future of commercial computing. He would stand in front of a group of managers and brief them for an hour on where computing would be a year hence. He would then use his certain predictions to guide what we should purchase.

There was one fault with his briefing:

His predictions were wrong every year.

No one else seemed to notice his perfect record. Maybe everyone noticed, but no one wanted to say anything contrarian. They just nodded and tried to ignore him. They did, however, sign the approvals that allowed him to waste millions of dollars on computers. Every year he would go in a different direction and replace all the computers he bought the previous year.

Sometimes someone would ask me what I thought would happen in the next year with computers. My reply:

If I new what would happen in a year with computers, I wouldn’t tell you. I would quit this government job and make a million dollars in the stock market.

The government’s five-year plan for digital education is just plain silly. The Secretary of Education is wasting his time (paid for by tax payers). The wikipedia article about the Secretary indicates that he has never taught school. That seems odd, but this is after all government.

by Dwayne Phillips

There has been much talk recently about reducing the  price of college. Most government actions, however, increase the price.

There has been much talk recently about the price (see note) of a college education. This is supposed to be one of the reasons of the Occupy this-street-and-that-street Movement. The Washington Post has an editorial on the topic.

Here are a few suggestions on reducing the price of a college education. I doubt that we will see these adopted.

1. Bring back the two-year teacher’s college and degree. A person does not need four years of college to qualify to teach American History in high school. If you passed American History in high school and take four courses (one each semester for two years) of education practice (not theory by practice) you are qualified. See Second Note.

2. Eliminate many of the four-year degrees awarded by colleges today. (A Bachelor’s Degree in Film Studies? Are you kidding?) Persons are going into debt to obtain a degree for which there are no jobs.

These actions reduce the number of persons attempting a four-year college degree.

Reduced demand will bring down the prices. This is called the Law of Supply and Demand. If a person took Introduction to Economics in college, they would have been exposed to this law.

The frequently tried and failed government solution is to give money to colleges and students. When you put money into a system, you raise the price of the goods in that system. Even the Washington Post mentions this (“federal aid has had the perverse effect of enabling tuition hikes”). Their mention, however, is just that – a little mention.

Education and and School:

Fewer people will be pursuing four-year college degrees. The cry, however, is that America needs more educated people. I agree. I believe there is a difference between education and school (of which college is a type). America needs more educated people. America does not need more and bigger schools. The inefficiency of America’s schools today is staggering. Let’s fix the system. Then again, in time, it will collapse from its own bloat. All we need is the government to remove artificial school requirements.

Note:

Given the state of ignorance in newspapers these days, it is not surprising that they discuss the cost of education. It is not the cost, but the price that affects consumers. Price = cost + profit. Yes, there is profit in education.

Second Note:

I have a PhD in Engineering. I took all sorts of mathematics in college. Under the current system, I am not qualified to teach Algebra in high school. I would have to take at least a year of education theory classes in college to qualify.

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 is a possible reason.

New things, like new tasks, involve a change. A period of chaos comes at the start of change. “Chaos” may be a strong word; “confusion” or “learning curve” may be better words. Regardless of the word we use, there is this period of time where confidence is lacking and we hesitate or spend a little more time chatting over a cup of coffee.

When you estimate the amount of time for a new task, remember the period of chaos in the estimate.

If you have a half-day task, there may be a couple hours of chaos. Your half-day task is now three quarters of a day. That is an estimation error of 50%. Yikes. If you have a two-week task, the several hours of chaos is about a 2% estimation error, which is not noticeable.

Chaos comes with every change. Examples of events that bring chaos include:

• Start a new task
• Stop a task
• Restart a task
• Bring a new person onto the team
• The boss visits the team (stop work, start and stop the visit, restart work – the boss brings a lot of chaos)
• The customer visits the team (same amount of chaos as the boss brings)

Conclusions?

Change brings chaos, and chaos costs time. Avoid changing just for the sake of changing. Understand the amount of time that the boss brings (especially if you are the boss and you want to “drop by for a little visit”).