Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

We are almost always uncertain. That is why we should plan key decision points.

“We knew what were were doing, right?” asked one of the decision makers after everything collapsed.

“Well, it sounded good when we started,” replied another one of the decision makers after everything collapsed.

No, sorry, we didn’t know what we were doing. We were uncertain. We had pretty good information; we had the best intentions, but there were things we didn’t know at the time.

That is normal.

How do we live with the normal uncertainties? Simple. (Easy? No. Simple. Yes.) We set points in time where we stop, think, look at new information, and decide. Some people call these decision points or key decision points. One place I worked abbreviated these KDPs and have a standard set of them: KDP-A, KDP-B, etc.

The use of these decision points is a candid admission of uncertainty. We will start now. We will spend this much of our resources in the next 30 days. We will stop at that point, consider new information, and decide if we go on to the next decision point. That next decision point has the similar limitations on resources.

This may be called conservative. It may be called prudent. I call it realistic. I recommend the practice.

by Dwayne Phillips

Unfortunate events provide yet another great reason to use a clipboard and a pencil.

My records indicate that this is the fourth blog post I have written about the clipboard and the pencil. The gist is that these old, simple tools are still quite valuable. Hence, we might reconsider a few other old tools from time to time.

Folks in Louisiana recently experienced Hurricane Ida. Power lines were knocked to the ground by the wind and objects hurled by the wind. Folks were without power for … well on the day I write this, it has been three weeks and some folks are still without power.

Computers don’t work well without electric power.

The clipboard and the pencil work just fine without electric power.

Now, the obvious is written and out of the way, let’s move on to more detailed situations. A close acquaintance has a whole-house generator. It runs 24 hours a day and the TV and computer are on (air conditioning, refrigerator, and other more important things, too). Aha! There! Forget the clipboard and pencil. Right? Wrong.

Internet service, TV, and phone (one of those great bundle package things) were out. Generator electricity didn’t help. Those systems—carried by telephone line—were down on the ground. All those cloud computing resources to store information and such were down. No email, no files, no photos, no videos, no this and no that, either.

The cellphone service came back after a week. That was a blessing. Take notes of this call and that call and this repairman and that generator-fuel man? The clipboard and the pencil worked. Nothing else did. The home computer worked with its local data storage, but if the generator ran out of fuel (which it did), the local data storage went down. Use you smartphone as your home computer! That works for somethings, but most of its capabilities are cloud based and…well much of those went down. And smartphones need recharging, which needs electric power, which is out when the generator is out of fuel and so on.

And, by the way, notes written for later blog posts and other history were recorded with the clipboard and the pencil. Simple. Durable. Reliable.

Extreme example? Yes. Lessons to learn? Also, yes. Applications elsewhere? Again, yes. I hope you learn from this extreme and painful example without having to suffer through it yourself or something akin to it.

by Dwayne Phillips

Some persons know what they want, but they don’t have the resources to tell me. Perhaps they don’t know what they want. Perhaps they have many other reasons for passing me to another person. Perhaps I should just stay away.

Do you want to know what I want? Talk to Mr. ABC. He has worked with me before. He knows from experience what I want. He will tell you.

I:

1. have not written what it is I want
2. do not have the time to talk to you

There are several messages herein. Probably the most important message is:

Stay away from this person.

I have been in this situation several times. The person even directed me to hire a company as a subcontractor. The ABC company would sit in my offices and day-by-day, little-by-little impart bits of wisdom about “what the boss really wants” in this and that situation.

These situations never worked well. Perhaps they have worked well in other situations with other persons, but that was not my experience.

by Dwayne Phillips

Most “Emergency Operations Centers” function to show that the emergency operations center has electricity. Does that describe yours?

A recent serious weather event caused me to interact with an Emergency Operations Center or EOC. The website for that place proclaimed quite proudly how it was built to withstand such serious weather events. And it did! No doubt this center was built with funds from our Federal government How nice. Free!

Anyways, I called the EOC and talked to a nice person. It was nice to do so as no other local phones were working due to the weather event. The EOC maintained communications. I told the nice person about the help I needed in arranging aid to locals. I was told to call the commercial providers of such aid. I reminded the nice person at the EOC that the local phones were all out (except, of course, for the EOC). I asked that someone drive out and knock on the door and … “Just call them yourself,” I was told.

Okay, no surprises. In my past, I have encountered this same thing. The EOC’s job is to manage the EOC in case of an E(mergency). Seems the emergency is for everyone else, not the EOC.

And now we reach the part of this blog post where we talk to ourselves. If you are a manager and are charged with COOP (Continuity of OPerations), consider your emergency plans. (1) Are you planning to continue the operations of your emergency operations? (2) Are you planning to provide aid to anyone else?

Questions (1) and (2) above are quite different. Most emergency planning is for (1), not (2). That is a shame. Come on folks, let’s do better.

by Dwayne Phillips

There are tools that help me remember the things I need to remember. They prevent a fall into the Dark Ages.

Define Dark Ages: it isn’t that we forget how to do something, it is that we forget than we once could do that.

Personal Dark Ages: it isn’t that I can’t remember the three-key sequence to do something in an application, it is that I can’t remember that I used to do that.

For example, you can create a book index with Microsoft Word (really, you can).

I don’t remember how to do that, but I do remember that I can do that in Microsoft Word. “All I have to do” is find a reference to it that gives me the specific steps.

This comes down to remembering and forgetting, or something like that, sometimes I forget what I am…

There are tools that help me remember. Files (paper files with pieces of paper in them and ink and pencil lead marks), notebooks (paper notebooks with pencil lead and ink on them), pieces of paper (with pencil lead and ink on them). See the pattern? Paper notes last a long time. They span operating systems and hardware (remember the Z-80 processor? I do, and the notes I took on the processor are not usueble today.), they span the decades (I do have notes that are several decades old).

I know how to use the tools to help me remember. I know how to use the tools that prevent personal Dark Ages. Let’s keep it that way.

by Dwayne Phillips

When you do something, someone will ask you how. Sometimes the explanation works, often it doesn’t.

It seems that once I wrote a book or two and a few dozen magazine articles, I was approached by persons who wanted to write a book or two and a few dozen articles. They wanted to know how I had done that. They wanted to write a book, too.

Well, why not ask me? I must know something from having done something.

Go through just about any list of writers who have succeeded in one of the many ways writers define “succeeding.” At some point these “successful” writers talk about writing or write about writing.

Some writers are good at both writing and writing about writing. Other writers have no interest in the second practice.

And this happens with just about anything. ACME Inc. succeeds in business. After a while, everyone wants Mr. Bigshot from ACME to talk and write about succeeding in business. Same with football, Hollywood, butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers. You do something. Please tell me how.

It is flattering to be asked. Sometimes it works, often it doesn’t.

by Dwayne Phillips

We make rules. Why? Sometimes it is petty and to serve our ego. Pause and think (two pretty good rules about rules).

We make a rule for or over or against the persons we know or our work colleagues. We cannot enforce that rule over all the persons who are supposed to be covered. We can, however, enforce the rule now and then, here and there, on this person or that, but not on everyone.

The poor person on whom we enforce it is in big trouble.

This selective and harsh enforcement appears to be “picking on” someone
or just plain using a silly rule as a way to punish select individuals whom we want
to select and punish.

So when we pass such a rule that is not broadly enforceable, we know that we
are passing it just to give ourselves power to punish individuals that we want
to punish.

It is our ego (WE HAVE THE POWER) not the general good we want to please. Hmmm, that “ego” thing, again. I guess that is a bad thing, huh? Well, maybe this time I will overlook my joy of having power over whom I want and just…

No. Bad idea. Why am I “making rules?” Are they for the good of all or just something else? Pause and think. (Gosh, those are two things I don’t like to do on some days. And did I just make two rules to apply to myself?)

by Dwayne Phillips

Data entry, one of the lower-paid professions, is prone to errors, and some can be fatal.

During the aftermath of the recent Hurricane Ida, a person close to me needed an essential service. By “essential” I mean if the service did not arrive, someone would die.

I repeatedly called the service provider. Finally, a person called back noting a possible error. Some digging into a database while on the phone showed that the address of the person close to me was incorrectly entered into the customer database. Instead of “West Smith Rd” or “W Smith Rd,” the entry was “West W Smith Rd.” Well, “West W Smith Rd” did not exist, hence, the account of the person close to me did not exist, hence, no services would be delivered, hence…fatality.

I was fortunate to be speaking to a competent and conscientious person who fixed the database, made several internal calls, and delivered the essential services just in time.

Such a data entry error is often called “fat fingering” the database with the thought that a finger wandered from one key to another on the keyboard and entered the wrong character. This is an honest error that occurs often. People perform data entry; people are fallible, and the mistake is understandable.

What is not understandable is that a company that delivers essential services would not have several automated and manual tests to catch and correct data entry errors. A simple automated test would compare the address entered to other databases. If the address does not exist anywhere else, have a person check the entry. The same goes for phone numbers, the spelling of names, etc. That is one simple test, there are many others available.

Fat fingering the database costs people jobs, income, health care, essential services, etc. and lives. There are techniques available to catch and correct the inevitable human error. Please, please use these techniques with your databases. Lives may be at stake.

by Dwayne Phillips

A phrase to add to every assignment or action item or anything that goes on a “to do” list.

Years ago, author and consultant Jerry Weinberg gave an assignment to attendees of his writing seminar. It was something like:

1. Think of what you should write today.
2. Write that.
3. Do that tomorrow, too.

The third step is the key. It keeps me doing what it is I should be doing. There are many variations to this, but all of them shine when the third step is included. For examples:

1. Think of a person you should encourage today.
2. Encourage that person,
3. Do that tomorrow, too.

and…

1. Find a mental exercise that improves your fill-in-the-blank.
2. Do that mental exercise.
3. Do that tomorrow, too.

and…

1. Find a person you should hug today.
2. Hug that person.
3. Do that tomorrow, too.

and…well, we could go on. Please go on. …and do that tomorrow, too.

by Dwayne Phillips

I find it unfortunate, but no-cost learning doesn’t exist. I guess this goes back to the concept of if it is worth something, it is worth something.

No-cost learning? Boy, I sure do want that!

Free online courses have a price tag of $0. They do, however, require time, energy, and other resources that don’t cost dollars.

I have to find these courses. I have to choose which one to take. Hmmm, there went an hour of searching and thinking and choosing. That cost something in time and thought. Then I work through the course. Oooops, there was that word, “work.” Work costs me something, otherwise I wouldn’t call it “work.”

I gain. I now know more than I did before. Good for me. The effort was “worth it.” And oooops, there was that word “effort.” Effort is not free. It costs me something. More costs in this no-cost learning. Hmmm.

I guess that if the learning is worth something, it is worth something. The expense I pay in time, effort, thought, choice, (gosh this list is getting long) is worth what I learn. And what I learn is worth more than what I expend, otherwise I wouldn’t do it.

No-cost learning? Yes, I want that. I have never seen it.