Working Up

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

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Did My Words Make Sense?

September 4th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips To write is to be misunderstood. Gosh, not very optimistic but it is realistic. We should constantly ask, “Did my words make sense?” “Never mind what it says, we know what we mean,” said an optimist about something we were reading. Yes, we did know what it meant. We read it half-a-dozen […]

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Tags: Change · Clarity · Communication · Improvement · Resources · Time · Writing

BYOD

August 24th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips BYOD or Bring Your Own Data is a big deal. It has been in computing since the start of computing. Nothing new here folks, but it is still important. Everyone is a data scientist (sort of). Everyone works for a data-centric organization (sort of). Data is the new oil (sort of). Data […]

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Tags: Communication · Computing · Data Science · Information · Language · Software · Technology · Word

Apology

July 31st, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips An apology is just that—an apology. It is neither an explanation nor a justification. Rats! An apology is simple: I did this wrong. I am sorry for that. I ask your forgiveness. An apology does not contain an explanation: I was trying to do such-and-such and … An apology does not contain […]

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Tags: Accountability · Adults · Authentic · Change · Communication · Conversation · Error · Ethics · Excuses · Honesty

No, You Don’t ”Know”

July 6th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Sorry, we (you and me) don’t “know” as often as we like to think. When I ask a person a question and their eyes look up, that means… Hah! Silly notion. I know what this means. I know what that means. I know what the other person is doing and thinking and […]

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Tags: Communication · Culture · Knowledge · Learning · People

Hollywood and Fighting Against What We Do

June 26th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Sometimes we fight against something with all our might only to discover that are foe is ourselves and what we do everyday. As I write this, there is a writer’s strike in Hollywood. Note, I am not in Hollywood writing this as a writer who is on a writer’s strike. Now that […]

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Tags: Analysis · Communication · Consulting · General Systems Thinking · Jobs · Writing

AI Won’t Replace People

June 22nd, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Sometimes we attribute things we don’t like to things we don’t like. It’s easier that way, even though it isn’t reality. Well, here we have it: AI is replacing people. We can read it in the newspaper. Plain and simple. I link to one newspaper article. I could link to a dozen […]

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Tags: Artificial Intelligence · Communication · Jobs · Management · People · Problems · Work

Whose Words?

May 1st, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips It is important to remember whose words we are discussing. If you mentioned something, we are discussing your words. If I mentioned something, we are discussing my words. There are ways to back away from our words. I read the words from the PowerPoint. They were wrong. Simply wrong. 1 + 2 […]

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Tags: Accountability · Communication · Humility · Learning · Meetings · Mistakes

Pause to Consider, Is This Working?

April 13th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips A basic questions that managers should ask above the noise and bustle of the day. Every group needs a person who asks a nagging question or two every day or week or month or two. Is this working? Of course this is working. What do you think? We are all busy; we […]

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Tags: Accountability · Communication · Management · Questions

Understanding by Walking Around

March 16th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips It is rare that we can understand something from one and only one perspective. We need to walk around the other sides to gain other perspectives. There is a method of describing something called the DoD Architecture Framework or DoDAF. Sometimes DoDAF is quite useful, but sometimes persons misuse it and … […]

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Tags: Communication · Design · Scale · Systems · Thinking · Visibility

Too Simple

March 13th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips We tend to want complex things. Too simple shows that we didn’t work hard, right? No, that is usually wrong. It happened again at work this week… Someone wanted a couple of sentences that summarized a project. The project had been running for ten years and is a success. Lots of people […]

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Tags: Brevity · Clarity · Communication · Simple · Writing