Working Up

Working Up in Project Management, Systems Engineering, Technology, and Writing

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The Seemingly Under Qualified

March 7th, 2024 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips History is filled with great accomplishments accomplished by people who shouldn’t be able to accomplish them. While not accomplishing great accomplishments, I find that I was almost always under qualified. I read history. Some would tell me that I read and reread too much history. One item I read repeatedly is someone […]

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Tags: Choose · Competence · People · Success · Trust · Wishes

Meta-Competence

February 22nd, 2024 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Once again, thinking at one layer higher than usual may bring insights that prove effective. There is competence: someone is able to do something well. They know the topic, they know the skills, and they apply them all. The adjective “well” is used often and truthfully. Then there is meta-competence: this has […]

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Tags: Adapting · Choose · Competence · Management · Meta · Time

The Local Phone Call

January 11th, 2024 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips There was a time when a local phone call was special. Today, we have social media. Same thing, but we tend to use it differently. We don’t have to. Many years ago there was such a thing as a long-distance phone call and a local phone call. The long-distance call was charged […]

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Tags: Choose · Conversation · Internet · People

We Don’t Have Time

November 6th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips The old saying about not having time to do it once still holds. Perhaps we will learn one day. There is an old saying about not having the time to do something right, but always having the time to do it over and over and over and… I’m not sure who said […]

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Tags: Choose · Communication · Expectations · Time · Work

The Experts and the Rest of Us

June 5th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips The experts devise a better way to do things. The rest of us attempt to follow their expert lead. We flop. Object-oriented programming flopped. Microservices and serverless computing flopped. I guess I could think of a few other great ideas that flopped. How about teaching kids to read via that total method […]

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Tags: Choose · Expertise · Failure · Fatigue · Learning · Process

A New Writing Project at Home

April 6th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips I don’t want to jump into the next book-writing project at home. Or do I? I just finished a writing project at home. Done, wrapped up, self-published on the places where my friends and relatives can by it for 99¢. Sigh. I don’t want to jump into the first thing that pops […]

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Tags: Adapting · Alternatives · Analysis · Choose · Writing

Meta Mistakes

March 9th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Some of the worst mistakes I make are my mistakes about my mistakes and the corrections of my mistakes. Confused? Most of us are. We all make mistakes. Sorry to write that, but it is true. Then we make meta mistakes. These are mistakes about our mistakes and the corrections of our […]

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Tags: Accountability · Choose · Excuses · Leadership · Learning · Mistakes · Reaction

Not This Place and Time

February 23rd, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips The persons who are in this place at this time to decide this thing are usually in the wrong place and time and deciding the wrong thing. Let’s decide. We are the deciders. We are in the deciding position because at some time and place in the past we showed how well […]

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Tags: Choose · Decide · Learning · Mistakes · People · Time

Worthwhile Problems?

January 26th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips I see amazing solutions and advances in technology everyday. Are all these, however, solving worthwhile problems? I recently read about how persons at Nvidia created a system that modifies a live video so that the eyeballs of the person on camera point to the camera. This happens while the real eyeballs are […]

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Tags: Choose · Engineering · Problems · Solutions · Technology · Wishes

Deciding

December 29th, 2022 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips One of the fundamentals in the engineering of systems and architecture is a “D” word that many loathe in our 21st century. “Let’s hold off on this until we have to decide,” said a hopeful inhabitant of a post-modern universe. Yes, there are things that we don’t have to decide until we […]

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Tags: Choose · Decide · Engineering · General Systems Thinking · Systems