Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Jumping from one thing to the next may appear to be a lack of focus when it really is a lack of foresight.

We’re working on this great thing. It took longer than we thought to build it. As we came close to finishing, rats, we quit because we realized that this great thing was overcome by events. The world had moved on to something else, and this great thing wasn’t relevant.

BUT WAIT. WOW!  A new idea. We are working on this great thing. Repeat the loop infinitely.

Is this a lack of focus? We jump from one thing to the next without ever finishing anything.

by Dwayne Phillips

How I define my goals has a large affect on how I perceive my successes and failures. It also affects how I see others in their efforts.

Define my goals. When I reach them, I am a success. How many people do we know who are successes? There is a key to how we define our goals.

“My goal is to sell 1,000 of my books.”

Stated another way, that goal is, “My goal is to have 1,000 people each buy a copy of my book.”

I cannot accomplish that. That requires 1,000 other people—who I do not control—to do something for me so that I am a success.

The goal should be within my control. Let’s try these goals:

1. “My goal is to write a first draft of a book.”
2. “My goal is to revise my first draft of a book.”
3. “My goal is to put my book on an online sales platform.”
4. “My goal is to post ads for my book on a social media site.”

All these goals are in my power to achieve. No one outside of my control is involved in any of these. I would be a success at least four times. How many people do you know who can claim that?

I think defining goals as things within my power alone to achieve is a worthwhile exercise. If you manage the efforts of others, trying defining your goals or expectations for them in a like manner.

by Dwayne Phillips

I can’t seem to think of the right questions at the right time. There are a couple of questions that I can always ask to compensate.

I sit with someone trying to learn something from them. I ask; they answer, and we repeat. Our time together ends.

Fifteen minutes later, after we have parted company, it hits me—the three questions I should have asked while we were conversing. Too late.

There is some old saying about growing too soon old and too late smart (someone even wrote a book with that title, imagine that). The brilliant ideas come too late. Why is that so? Why can’t I…?

There are a few things I can do to compensate for my all-too-late realizations. I can always ask one or two questions. These include:

(1) May I come back later with questions that come to mind as I consider this conversation?

and

(2) What questions do you expect me to ask now?

and then to toss in a few mind-bending ones…

• What is the question you expected me to ask that I didn’t ask?
• What is the question you want me to ask that I didn’t ask?
• What is the question you didn’t want me to ask that I didn’t ask?

I suppose the list of extra questions is longer than given here. Still, numbers (1) and (2) should be printed in the heading of all lists of questions that I take to a question-and-answer session. Now, why didn’t I think of this back in 198x….

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.