Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips We do things that we know won’t work. I don’t understand why. We do things that we know won’t work. Some examples: The Polygraph: This machine (the lie-detector machine) doesn’t work. People have beat it for decades. That is why polygraph results are not admissible in court. Still, lots of government and […]

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by Dwayne Phillips The title of this post is a telephone number – the way we used to say telephone numbers. Much has changed in telephones, and much of the change is for the better. Still, we have lost a lot of our culture about telephones. The title of this post is a phone number. […]

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by Dwayne Phillips When faced with a situation on a system-building project, we can find an approach that will work. We can also find many other approaches. Do we choose the better approach or one we personally like? Several years ago, a professional soccer player spent a few afternoons helping to coach one of my […]

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by Dwayne Phillips To provide a system for users, we need to know the users. How can we know the users without being a user and forgetting about the providers? I once worked a couple of years in an American Embassy in Africa. A constant concern at the U.S. Department of State was that its […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Traveling – living in and out of motels – is different from living in a home. This differences points to lessons that can improve home life. I recently spent five weeks on the road. Motel after motel, night after night. In the past, I have had jobs where I traveled two and […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Projects to reduce work, production, or consumption should reduce costs. This corresponding reduction in costs, however, rarely occurs. Instead, an increase in cost often happens. Please be attentive to what you are doing and watch for this contrary behavior. There are many things than many people want to reduce. Consider body weight. […]

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by Dwayne Phillips The familiar is comfortable. The comfort, however, sometimes hides risk and impending doom. Take care. I have been on the road for two weeks walking mostly through rural Alabama. This weekend I am in Tuscaloosa. This is a university town, so it differs from most of the places I have been. I […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Customers don’t always act like responsible customers. Managers don’t always act like responsible managers. This is the real world, and often less-than-adult behavior exists. Sometimes you soothe people by giving them something they really want, even if it isn’t good for them. Here is a true story. I was the engineer. I […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Some musings about personal spending and saving. I’ve never been a good consumer. By that I mean that I have never consumed enough. It seems that the American economy in the past half-dozen decades has been driven by consumers. The more people consume, the more jobs there are for producers who then […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Managers often start things that they cannot sustain. Great endeavors begin with gusto, but fade away quietly. I dislike these. There are ways around the continual disappointment of the unsustainable. I’ll never forget the evening. My dad had pulled out his slide projector (in case your are too young to recall these […]

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