Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Confronted with a big mess? What do you fix first? What order? Try this suggestion.

I once entered a job where everything was a mess. Chaos? Well, I won’t write that chaos reigned as that implies there was some order someplace. I found none.

It was a mess, where to start? I started with what I was touching at the moment. Something popped up, I fixed it. Then I improved what was connected to it.

There, it was better than I found it. What do I do next? What I do next, that’s what. Pretty soon I had time to go looking for something to fix.

Simple? Yes. Works? Yes. Easy? No. It is much easier to be frustrated. It is much easier to be paralyzed. It is much easier to be demoralized.

Just improve the one thing you are touching right now. Later, do the same.

by Dwayne Phillips

When building and maintaining a system, the fundamental question is, “Whom am I trying to please?” This post offers a different answer.

User, Customer, Manager, Boss? What do I call the person I am trying to please when building or maintaining a system? Whom am I trying to please?

Here is a suggestion: The Livelihood Provider

If we don’t please that person, we lose our paycheck, our livelihood. The Livelihood Provider may not pay a cent, but somehow, through the magic of virtualized virtually virtual worlds…if we don’t please that person, we have no pay, no livelihood.

I am the Livelihood Provider for all those folks at Google. Same for the folks at Facebook. If I am not pleased, they lose their livelihood. I suppose I am pretty important.

Who is pretty important for you?

by Dwayne Phillips

Try to test the system as the user would use it. This isn’t easy, but it is necessary.

We tested this!!!

Great. On what machine? In what room? In what area of the world? At what time? Under what conditions?

Do the answers to these and other questions resemble what the user out there would answer?

If not, oooops, we didn’t test the system.

It doesn’t matter than something functions in the lab or the factory or the board room or any other special place. If it doesn’t function “over there” (wherever that happens to be), it doesn’t function.

by Dwayne Phillips

One way to stay out of trouble.

Twin girls. You date one of them. Someone comes up to you and asks, “So, you tried to date the pretty one, but she said no and you have this one?”

There is no good answer.

Do you still beat your wife? No good answer.

When did you stop cheating on your taxes? No good answer.

So what do you say? How about, “That is a question with no good answer.”

by Dwayne Phillips

“Are you a people person?” is one of the most moronic questions ever asked.

What is more important to me, people or projects?

What is more important to me, people or products? People or things?

These are silly questions. If a building is on fire, and I can only save a product or a person, which do I save. Silly question.

All the above questions are misguided. The real question is:

Which people are important to me?

There is no choice among people and stuff. The choice is among some people and some other people. Let’s try to focus on the right question.

by Dwayne Phillips

The claim of greater “better-ness” and ensuing failure seem to associate frequently.

There is an old story of programmer who coded for six hours. Then, instead of going home, the programmer coded two more hours and made enough mistakes in those two hours that it took the rest of the week to find fix them. The programmer should have called it a day.

Okay, maybe for most folks, but we’re tough(er). We can program all day and not be tired and make mistakes!

By personal experience and repeated examples…adults can go to class six hours a day. Okay, then the next two hours they can’t focus. But we go to class eight or more hours a day. The next day class continues, but the last two hours of the previous day are foggy, so they don’t understand today’s material and tomorrow’s and it goes down hill and…they should have quit after six hours because that is what adults can handle in a day.

But we’re tough. We can sit in class all day and absorb it all! If you can’t do as we—the superior—do, go home.

No, we’re not tough. We aren’t exceptionally capable. All our bravado is silly.

Why is it that we can’t admit that we are human, too?

by Dwayne Phillips

Hiding from bad news is a common situation. I had to realize, however, that worse than bad news was no news.

Yes, I did this. I was managing a project where I would hide in the bathroom. Everything was awful. The only place I could go and not hear terrible news was the bathroom at the office building. In the red, yellow, green scheme of project status, this one was screaming sirens, balloons going up, flashing red lights head for the hills all the time everyday.

Hiding is a reaction, not an event. The event was the news. The first reaction was, “This is bad.” The second reaction? The bathroom.

Why react in that manner? I hate bad news. Not alone there.

Let’s Reframe: funny how reframing seems to happen years later, but that is another story for another day, but I digress…

Let’s Reframe: be happy that I am hearing news. People are not keeping information from me. Yes, worse than bad news is no news.

Hiding from news? Be thankful for news and the news bearers.

by Dwayne Phillips

Sometimes the way to accomplish more sooner is to acknowledge the person and wait until later.

A short but true story:

We were short of persons in one particular skill category at work. Work piled up. We were waiting, mostly impatiently. Finally, a new person arrives in that skill category. All of us earnest (impatient) persons with all the work piled high are anxious to race in to the new person’s office and tell her why our work was more important than anyone else’s and…actually we wanted her to recognize that each of us was more important than the rest, but that is another topic for another day.

Anyways, on her first day at work, each person raced into her office with a mountain of work. “I am so-and-so,” each would proclaim. “You have to work on my project right now.”

At mid-morning. I walked into her office with a vase of flowers and a box of chocolates. “Hello,” I said. “Welcome. We are happy to have you with us. Here are a few tokens of welcome. You and I will be working together on a few projects. Take a few days to settle into your new office and meet everyone. I’ll be back later this week and we can discuss the projects then. Have a good day.”

Guess whose work was accomplished first? If you haven’t guessed by now, mine was.

That actually occurred a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Flowers and chocolate may not be appropriate in our world today. What is still appropriate is acknowledging the other person as a person and granting time and space.

Try it sometime, perhaps tomorrow or later this week.

by Dwayne Phillips

Pulling information from colleagues can sometimes seem like pulling teeth.

Why don’t they tell me what they are doing?

Because “they” can’t read “my” mind. They don’t know what I feel is important today, what my boss is pinging on me for today. I have to ask. I have to pull the information
AND YES, sometimes it feels like pulling teeth—a figure of speech as I have never pulled a tooth and don’t really know how difficult it is. It sounds painful to all involved, and in the case of information pulling, it is painful for all involved.

To make it a little less gruesome than pulling a tooth, tell the other person, “This is painful for me and I guess it is painful for you as well, but we have to do this. The persons who pay the bills want this, so let’s give it to them as quickly and faithfully and fully as we can and we can get on with what it is we think is important.”

by Dwayne Phillips

Sometimes success catches us by surprise. Too bad as we miss an opportunity.

Success may not come, but be ready if it does. Years ago, I went to a conference and spoke.
Some persons approached me and asked for more information and contacts and cards and seminars. Wow. What a success.

I, however, wasn’t prepared to give them anything or continue to contacts. I was unable to capitalize on the success.

That was a personal example. Professionally? Your team finishes building a system a week early. Everything is as it should be. You have succeeded.  Did you have extra ideas you could have implemented in the extra days? Could you have turned a good system into a great system? Were you ready for the success?

I don’t expect success in all endeavors. I do, however, plan for them more often than I in the past.