Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips Sometimes we recognize our failures. Then—for some strange reason—we attempt something that will fail an order of magnitude more. We have failed to manage our $1 maintenance budget. Let’s correct this by starting a $10 development budget. We have failed to communicate in daily operations. Let’s correct this by starting a large […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Another person who had a major influence in my life has passed away. Author and consultant Jerry Weinberg passed away recently. I had the privilege of reading a dozen or so books written by Jerry. I had the privilege of attending several seminars Jerry led. I learned much from Jerry. Jerry learned […]

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by Dwayne Phillips If I cannot explain something with brevity and clarity, I am not ready to explain it. Gosh, that summary is a killer. I am ready to explain something. I have this earth-changing wonderful great super-duper (note the lack of brevity and clarity) idea that the world needs to hear and implement just […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Part 2 of 2 blogs on writing about…of course I write about what don’t I know. How else would I ever learn anything? This one doesn’t make as much sense as part 1 did. How can I write about something that I don’t know. Well… First, I learn. Second, I write. Or […]

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by Dwayne Phillips How do you do something everyday for ten years? You do it everyday (for ten years). Every morning, with very few exceptions, I sit and view the news on the Internet. I make notes in a weblog. See here and here. Recently, I noted that I had done this for ten years. […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Another instance of “don’t judge a book by its cover” slaps me in the face. I bought my wife an Android tablet for Christmas. If you know my wife, you will need a couple of minutes to regain your composure and resume breathing. Okay, we continue. I, being the smart computing person […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Nothing is so cruel as to learn that the system we built doesn’t do what we thought it would. We are good, smart, caring people. We work diligently to build good systems that serve others. We test. We really test—no kidding, no fooling around. We really test. Then one day, someone walks […]

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by Dwayne Phillips There are a long list of things we could try that would not work, but there may be side benefits for trying. A recent article highlighted what some call agri-hoods where people are trying to live an agriculture life in the outer suburbs. Yes, they are going to grow their own food. […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Regardless of the size and scope of an organization, we all have to opportunity to learn from and pass along learnings to the few persons we meet each day. Naive? Perhaps, but worth a try. I currently work for an organization that has over 100,000 persons in it. Of course that size […]

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by Dwayne Phillips An old technique that always surfaces confusion and moves us towards clarity. Me: Let’s draw a picture of this so I can understand it better. Person A: We don’t need to waste time with that. We all know what it is. …a little while later… Person A: See, we set it up […]

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