Working Up

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

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Hurry

January 29th, 2026 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips We are in a hurry. We still need to do this well. Basketball coach John Wooden, his UCLA teams won 10 national championships, had many sayings. One was, “Be quick, but don’t hurry.” Hurry means to move or act with great haste. There is some implication in there about moving or acting […]

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Tags: Breathe · Competence · Management · Mistakes · Multitasking · Thinking · Time

Be Curt … It’s Okay

January 12th, 2026 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips The one great advantage to working with a chatbot. curt: adjective, using or expressed in few words, in a way perceived as rude. Ah, that’s it. That’s what I like about working with a chattering bot: I can be curt and I won’t hurt anyone’s feelings. I was attempting to create a […]

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Tags: Artificial Intelligence · Competence · Computing · Language · Word

Garbage In, Garbage Out

November 20th, 2025 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips One of the oldest phrases in computing is still true. Rats. Some folks thought AI would fix this. If I meant to find the sum of 2 and 3 but typed 2+4, I would have the wrong answer. Rats. Inputing the wrong information produces the wrong output. So said Charles Babbage some […]

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Tags: Artificial Intelligence · Chaos · Commitment · Competence · Expertise · Humility · Technology · Tools · Work

Exceeding the Job (Caution)

November 13th, 2025 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Sometimes I can do more than my job. I can exceed and excel. I recommend caution. I read an editorial recently about newspapers. Perhaps that editorial was agreeable or not as it delved into the politics of the English language (thoughtful and fraught with peril). The topic was journalism, journalists, and journal-ing. […]

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Tags: Communication · Competence · Expectations · Expertise · Growth · Ideas · Journal · Management

Conceding

November 10th, 2025 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Sometimes you concede or yield to another person’s experience in a situation. Folks seem to hate that. “You have more experience with this type of thing or this type of situation. I yield to your judgement here.” Seems like that is pretty reasonable and wise. Folks seem to hate it. What is […]

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Tags: Agreement · Communication · Competence · Decide · Knowledge · Management · Writing

The Exception

August 21st, 2025 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips We do everything according to our documented documents—except when we don’t. Mr. Zuckerburg at Meta has created a superintelligence group to do something wonderful in AI. He is using the tried-and-true documented management practice of the skunk works. The skunk works is a special place where you put some really smart folks […]

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Tags: Competence · Experiment · Expertise · Learning · Management · Problems · Process

PDF2IRL

June 23rd, 2025 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Perhaps we have become a bit too smart for our own good. Time to swing the pendulum back to practical, in-real-life activities. Yet another pendulum swings back and forth. We are in the 21st century and harnessing the power or our brains and augmenting our brains with AI and all such marvelous […]

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Tags: Competence · Knowledge · Learning · Practice · Publishing · Writing

Good, Smart People

April 7th, 2025 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Want more efficient and more productive government? The solution is simple, but probably won’t be used. Once every now and then, someone comes along and tries to make government more efficient and more productive. Note: this means more efficient and more productive than it is now. This does not mean truly efficient […]

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Tags: Accountability · America · Change · Competence · Ethics · Government · Improvement · Simple

Kids’ Sports and the Company Picinc

September 9th, 2024 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Some advice on kids’ sports. This is really good advice. As usual, someone else gave it to me. Major league baseball is concluding yet another season. The Little League baseball national and international tournaments just concluded (putting all those kids’ games on national TV live was a horrible mistake). What’s one to […]

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Tags: Adults · Competence · Fun · Learning · Teaching

Oh, You Do Things Well Here

May 9th, 2024 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Excellence is an exception. It is also a pleasant surprise. Enjoy it. Sometimes I am surprised in that I walk into a new situation with a new group of persons and, WOW, they are doing things well. Best practices, best tools, high expectations, high satisfaction. It is all here. They are well […]

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Tags: Chaos · Competence · Expectations · Expertise · People