Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

There is something called the “hope nothing” meeting. In it, I hope nothing comes up that causes me pain, effort, and general angst. Hope nothing meetings are pleasant, but can be deadly.

I sit in meetings. People tell me things. Sometimes they tell me things that cause me work. Sometimes they tell me things that cause me grief. Sometimes they simply tell me more than I want to know.

“I hope nothing comes up in today’s meeting,” said me as I wearily sat at the table surrounded by persons with valuable information.

This is the “Hope Nothing Meeting.”

I won’t ask any questions. I will hope the others make simple statements. I will hope the others gloss over any difficulties. I will hope that I can walk out of the meeting on my merry way and not have to deal with unpleasantness.

I will be ignorant.

Hmmm. Ignorance is probably a bad state. These hope nothing meetings are bad for me and everyone else, too.

No one ever said this would be easy. Avoid the hope nothing meetings. Ask. Probe. Contribute. Expect. Act.

by Dwayne Phillips

Sometimes we want to clarify what we have written. Adding to the end (a few words onto a sentence, a few sentences onto a paragraph, a few paragraphs onto a chapter, etc.) works, but is merely an ugly band-aid. Rewrite instead.

I did tripped again this morning. I wrote a sentence that wasn’t clear. I “fixed” it by adding a few words to the end. (This is a summary of https://www.anandtech.com/show/15483/amd-threadripper-3990x-review.)

Original: A look at AMD’s 64-core processor as AMD is taking the top spot in high-performance processors.

Clarified: A look at AMD’s 64-core processor as AMD is taking the top spot in high-performance processors away from Intel.

See how this is better? Gasp. Lazy. Just add a prepositional phrase and it is all better. Not.

Rewrite: AMD continues to surpass Intel in high-performance processors with this 64-core model.

The rewrite is shorter than both. It also emphasizes the two actors (AMD and Intel). It took more effort, i.e., not as lazy. And it doesn’t have that band-aid hanging off the end of the sentence begging to be ripped off and tossed in the trash.

by Dwayne Phillips

Logarithms help represent large and complex items with smaller and simpler concepts. We forget this at our peril.

I used a slide rule in years gone past. It functions on logarithms. These take large numbers and represent them with small numbers. It really is a remarkable concept.

The logarithm concept has been extended to many other fields. Data compression—a good example is the .jpg image file—makes large files much smaller. Much of machine learning uses a single number to represent an entire image or sentence or paragraph.

The examples go on. The examples could go on much further, but we don’t seem to like this. We want all the information at hand. The trouble is, we cannot fathom all the information at hand. It is simply not simple but large and complex, and we get a headache.

Have a headache? Reach for the logarithm or something akin to it in your field.

by Dwayne Phillips

It seems that “common sense” is what others need, which says much about me.

Me: Someone who has that malady should stay home and get well.

Me (later): I am fine. I am not that sick. I can do my job even when I am not completely well.

Common sense. It is what other persons need when they are a little sick. They should know that they should be home. I have common sense. I know when a sickness is not enough to keep a person (me) from work.

Common sense is when my car is old, but still running well enough to get me to work and around town and can still have one more big repair before I buy a new car. My friend just doesn’t have enough common sense to trade his klunker now while it has some value.

Common sense is when I shovel snow from my driveway so I can drive around. My neighbor doesn’t have good common sense. He isn’t going anywhere, so he should relax and let the sun melt the snow because that is good enough for him.

Funny how I have common sense, but others lack it. Funny how I know what to do at work on projects, but others just don’t seem to understand.

by Dwayne Phillips

We hate to admit it, but we are here and now because of our past actions.

“How did we get here?” bemoans a person currently caught in some quicksand of life.

The answer is, “Out steps brought us here.”

Another answer is, “The system is the way it is because we made it that way.”

The situation, the system, the quicksand just didn’t appear from no where. We walked into the quicksand-laden swamp. We built the system. We created our fate.

Dwell in the past? Probably not a good idea. Forget the past? Also probably not a good idea. Admit the past? I find it to be better than the previous choices. Learn from the past? I find that to be even better yet.

Some things are outside our control. Sometimes we can prepare for those things and not be standing in the way of the hurricane. Most of the time, however, our actions brought us into our current situation.

Choose to learn. It isn’t easy, but…

by Dwayne Phillips

There is a type of project that will not only create a product, but will also cure all ills in an organization. “Get well projects” exist largely in fantasy.

There is a type of project that some of us know as a “get well project.” Such are usually found in organizations that have major problems. The get well project will not only create a new product or service, but it will also cure all the major problems.

Got problems? Find a get well project.

Easier said than done. This is largely because get well projects rarely exist in reality, but are the objects of fantasy and wishful thinking.

Get well projects are easy to identify. They begin with a description of current problems in the organization. Such problems occur over time and can be traced to poor management. They end with a description of a new product or service that has nothing to do with the current problems. It is this dissociation that characterizes the project. Unrelated but major problems will go away.

Sorry. Doesn’t happen. Problems grow slowly. Solutions to such also occur slowly with time, patience, and diligence. That is a major appeal of the get well project: it wipes out all problems quickly and without effort.

Hmmm, solving problems quickly and without effort. Yes, that is the stuff of fantasy.

by Dwayne Phillips

A fundamental question of each of us is, “Do I want someone else to understand?” If yes, great effort may be required. If no, keep moving.

I work with other persons. Nothing unique there, but I am fortunate in that most of these others are really smart and are working on the types of things that really smart persons typically work on.

I often attempt to grasp what these really smart persons are doing. They sometimes attempt to have me grasp what they are doing. We both frequently fail at this.

A fundamental question for these really smart persons (and the rest of us as well) is, “Do I want someone else to understand?” Will an explanation cause a listener to say the two-word title of this post, i.e., “What’dya say?”

In non-fiction communication—the area where I and my colleagues attempt to swim—the communicator must take the role of the defensive driver. I will do more than my part or …

I will make it difficult for the reader to misunderstand.

That is easier written than written. The word “easier” is key. It is difficult to meet the above; it requires lots of effort on my part. Is that effort worth it? It is if the answer to the fundamental question is, “Yes.”

If the answer to the fundamental question is, “No.” Then move along with the work and maybe the others will catch on later. If, however, I depend on the others…

by Dwayne Phillips

Sometimes we don’t know something. There is a magic question that moves us from unknowing to knowing. Three words: when will you?

Person A: How much will this project cost?

Person B: I don’t know.

Person A: When will you (know how much this project will cost)?

Person B: I don’t know.

Person A: When will you (learn how much this project will cost)?

Person B: I don’t know.

Person A: When will you (schedule a learning meeting so that you will learn how much this project will cost)?

Now, Person B knows to

• schedule a learning meeting
• learn at the meeting
• know how much the project will cost
• in that order

We have moved from unknowing to knowing how to know. All from a repeated asking of, “When will you…?”

A problem is that Person A can be quite annoying with all this, “when will you, when will you, when will you?” Sometimes we have to be annoying when the topic is important to us.

by Dwayne Phillips

One of the ultimate compliments at work is, “We’ll do fine without you.” If you want to be indispensable, do a really bad job.

It may seem backwards, but we can do without our best employees. Of course, this all depends on the definition we use for “best” and “good.”

Our best employees let everyone know what they are doing. Their work is made visible and is easy to find. They have no “secret ingredients.” Why would they have a secret ingredient. Someone is paying them for their ingredients. That someone owns the ingredients, not the employee.

Our worst employees hide what they are doing. They have magic numbers and secret brews bubbling in a big black cauldron in the dungeon. No one goes near for fear of all those things that lurk in dungeons near big black cauldrons. Indispensable employees are doing a bad job. They produce work, take a paycheck, but no one else can reproduce their work.

Our best employees can walk out the door with a smile on their face. We can pick up after them without missing a beat. We bid one another farewell with a personal loss, but a professional atmosphere of work. We will do fine without them. And the feeling is mutual.

by Dwayne Phillips

According to some arbitrary scheme, we are in the year two thousand and twenty. Let’s let it be.

My eight year old granddaughter told me that it was the year 20 20, “the year of perfect vision.” I can live with that as she is eight years old and was born with cataracts. She had two eye surgeries on each eye and knows more about those 20-whatever measures than me.

The rest of the adults writing out there have no excuse.

We have been in the year two thousand twenty for about four weeks now. Let us quit all the twenty twenty puns and such. Enough already. Surely there is something else to write.

Thank you.