Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Analyzing the gap between what we have and what we need is a good practice. Beware, however, that it doesn’t stop people from thinking and focus them on the same old thing.

“Gap analysis is a systematic method used to identify the differences between an organization’s current state and its desired future state. By comparing the “as-is” situation with the “to-be” situation, organizations can pinpoint areas for improvement, such as performance gaps, process inefficiencies, or resource deficiencies. This analysis helps prioritize actions, allocate resources effectively, and develop strategies to bridge the gap and achieve desired goals.”—standard description of gap analysis provided by some chattering bot.

Okay, it is often good to analyze the gap between what we have and what we need.

CAUTION: gap analysis often focuses on what we have and how to extend what we have. Notice the focus on “what we have.” We are spending a lot of time studying our current situation and our current capabilities.

What about something new? What about something completely different? Gap analysis does not address these questions. Sure, we can address these “What about” questions later. Do we have “later?” Have we consumed all our resources on gap analysis? Are our brains consumed with the current world?

Beware of the focus of gap analysis when analyzing gaps. Allocate resources for something completely different. We can do better.

by Dwayne Phillips

Often, with the best of intentions, groups of people writing something add needless adjective and adverbs.

There is a group of persons. They are writing directions, a memo, something important or seemingly so.

Someone, earnestly with the best of intentions, suggests, “We should change ‘calculate performance’ to ‘carefully calculate detailed performance.'”

Just add one adjective and one more adverb so that the reader understands how important this is and does a really good job with it.

One: Everyone in this place understands the importance. Everyone is this place does a good job. If they don’t, they shouldn’t be here and we shouldn’t be assigning them work.

Two: extra words don’t add meaning to a document. The opposite occurs. People skim longer documents and read shorter ones.

Strunk and White advised to omit needless words. Many writing teachers since have advocated nouns and verbs over adjectives and adverbs. Still, well-meaning people toss them in like adding sugar to a peach pie. Needless.

by Dwayne Phillips

Sometimes the better type of improvement is when all the other people improve. That tends to help me improve, too.

This is about working with others in a manner that they become smarter and better. Some would describe this as leadership, but often I think of leadership dedicated to the designated leader like the team leader or department head or CEO or some job like that. Instead, this is about doing little things everyday that cause others to do smarter things and do them better.

One example: I would walk around everyday to check on everyone on the things they were doing. Someone else starting walking around with me. They learned what everyone was doing and, more importantly, who everyone else was. This other person had improved their ability. That improvement made me and everyone else more capable.

Another example: I posted a large diagram of our information system on a wall next to the coffee pot—a common gathering place. Little by little, people learned of the available resources. Little by little, people corrected the diagram by writing on it and showing me my mistakes. We all became smarter. We all improved. I improved at the same time as the other persons improved. That wasn’t “leadership,” it was something else. I will let others find a good word for it.

In both cases, learning occurred. No one was a formal teacher, but the situation allowed some people to teach on some occasions and learn during all occasions. Creating those situations isn’t easy, but it is possible and likely with some effort and good intentions. Find those situations. We can do better.

by Dwayne Phillips

A problem with fact checking is that people write so poorly these days we cannot find the facts in seemingly factual statements.

Fact checking and the absence or removal of fact checking has been in the news recently. Some society media outlets have removed fact checking and such for something else called “moderation.”

Anyways, there are some inconvenient aspects to fact checking. One is simply that stuff is written so poorly we cannot find the facts to check. Oh, there is the basic, “Water boils at 37°F.” Aha! Fact checking shows that to be misinformation (a more mysterious way of saying “incorrect” or just plain “wrong”).

Now consider, “It is reported that schooling from home during the pandemic caused poorer scores on standardized tests.”

Gosh, it sounds like there are some facts in there that we could check, but I’m not sure. Someone reported a drop in scores. What scores? How do they link the pandemic to those scores? Who analyzed this? There is passive voice, there is some vague notion of attending school, “the pandemic” is mentioned but without dates, this all occurred somewhere but that isn’t mentioned, and what is poorer? Did scores fall 0.1% or 10.1% or what? What scores? What tests?

I find the poor writing of the second example to be far more prevalent than the crisp and factual writing of the first example.

Now, do a fact check on the above sentence. Gosh. This falls apart quickly. And gosh, that prior sentence cannot be fact checked either.

by Dwayne Phillips

There are times when we do some things quietly to minimize the hurt. We should, however, decide whose hurt we are minimizing.

Someone has made too many mistakes. We are dismissing the mistake maker. Let’s do it quietly to minimize the embarrassment and hurt of the mistake maker.

Well, there is no “we” or “us” here. It is ME. I am dismissing the mistake maker. Am I minimizing the embarrassment and hurt of the mistake maker or the embarrassment and hurt of me?

And what about everyone else here? What will they hear and see? What will they take in? How will they react? What about their embarrassment and hurt? This isn’t easy. This isn’t supposed to be easy.

Yes, “we” want to hurt folks less, but which folks? Me, the mistake maker, or everyone here?
Sometimes some hurt is inevitable and necessary. Let’s be careful and let’s do better.

by Dwayne Phillips

We can’t have both facts and adjectives. Can we?

Facts are facts. It is 27° F outside.

Adjectives are, well sort of fuzzy. It is cold outside. (Cold to whom? Cold compared to what?)

“The fact is, they were aggressive.” Oops. “Aggressive” is an adjective.

“The fact is, he is tall.” Well, “tall” is an adjective, but 98.6% of the world considers someone who is seven feet tall to be, well, you know “tall.”

Engineering specifications should be facts that are measurable and testable. Engineers should express the goals of a system with adjectives like, “happy users” and “easy to use.”

Good grief; this is confusing. “Confusing” is an adjective. Good grief. I think “good grief” is all adjectives as well.

This gives me a headache. Oops. Can’t measure a headache. Is a headache a fact or an adjective?

Why can’t this be simpler? (yet another adjective) This requires work and effort and caring to find facts and use adjectives when they are appropriate. This is our task. Let’s do better.

by Dwayne Phillips

Is it alright to declare that we behave erratically and that others just need to watch out for us and be cautious?

Recently, while driving on the Interstate, I saw a sign posted on a car:

• CAUTION
• Sudden lane changes
• Frequent stops

Oh, just declare that we drive erratically, so just watch out for us. Silly, of course. How could someone declare to the world, “I don’t obey the rules. If you are near me, be cautious because you just don’t know what I will do?” And do this on the public roads? Watch out! I swerve in and out of traffic and drive fast and slow and all kinds of crazy things. It’s okay for me to drive like that because I put a sign on my car. Huh?

Consider this: CAUTION, this is an R&D project. We don’t know if we can build the system we want. We only have a 50% chance of succeeding. Senior management knows all this and approved funding for it. Here we go. Let’s see what happens.

Oh, well, that’s okay, I guess. I sure wish senior management would let me work like that. If I goof and don’t deliver, that’s okay. Right?

Sigh. I don’t know. Wise groups of people can declare CAUTION, THIS MAY NOT WORK on a few projects. How many is a “few?” Wise persons need to decide. We can do better.

by Dwayne Phillips

A different take on the technology roadmap.

This story goes back some 25 years (yes, I am that old), but it still applies. There were guys trying to do a technology roadmap that was nice and linear and just right. You know, this year we are using this technology, we will move to that technology next year, and so on until in five years we will be using the other technology.

Nice, straight timeline you could draw with a ruler.

Someone suggested take a view was that of a fishing rod. The part next to your hand is stiff while the far end is thin and flexible. You would wiggle your and and that part of the rod moved just a little. The far end would bend and flex a lot.

Liken this to a cone that is horizontal. The vertex or point is lying to the left on a time axis. The base or wide part is lying to the right on a time axis.

The tech experiments to the left (near time) are fixed. We perform those few experiments. The results could point in a few directions. As time progresses the possibilities of experiments expands. On a cone, this looks linear, but is really non-linear as the cone is a three-dimensional object.

What happens three years from now? We don’t know. There are many experiments to be performed between now and then with many different outcomes leading to many different experiments.

There are many paths between now and three, five, ten, twenty years from now.

Think back folks. The iPhone changed the world and it isn’t twenty years old. Who would have thought that we would carry supercomputers and the best cameras in the world in our pocket?

The cone expresses that well. A technology roadmap that fits in a rectangle does not.
Imagine the fishing rod. Forget the ruler. Yikes. This can be scary, but it can also be enlightening.

by Dwayne Phillips

Should we have a meeting? Here is one test to help answer that question.

Should we have a meeting once a week with everyone attending?

Probably not. We can use a bulletin board to tell everyone this week’s news. We’ll put the news on the computer network of course because we have computer networks and why use a plain old real-life proven-to-work bulletin board when we can waste computer resources?

One reason for a real-life meeting: there is a bit of news that everyone should here from one person in one place and at one time.

For example,

• The organization is laying off 10% of the workforce.
• The head of the organization is being replaced.
• The organization is being re-organized and everyone will move to a different desk today.

The list can go on and on.

Otherwise, the bulletin board or email or such works just fine. Everyone receives the same information but at different times. The different times to receive doesn’t matter.

by Dwayne Phillips

Sometimes the better thing to do is accept whatever the situation and move to the next step.

Person A: It’s not my fault.

Person B: It’s not my fault, either.

Person A: Whose fault is it?

Person B: Let’s accept that it isn’t either one of our faults and move to the next step.

Sometimes, that is the better thing to do. None of us (whoever “us” might be) did anything to cause this situation. Not much use in thinking about cause, fault, and those types of things. The better thing to do is accept whatever the situation and move to the next step.

Person A and Person B: Any ideas on what to do next?