Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips People often enter business relationships without first answering one question: If I fire you, will that affect our personal relationship? Business relationships are about business. They involve contracts and agreements: You will do this and I will do that. This is pretty simple when you consider these terms. This is pretty complicated […]

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by Dwayne Phillips The foundation of risk management is asking, “What could possibly go wrong?” Some people, however, shrug when asked while others make a list of a million things. A recent chat: Person A: What do you know about risk management? Me: A “risk” is a problem that hasn’t occurred yet. Person A: What […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Good thoughts, hard work, a good team – they are great, but don’t guarantee success in projects. I find yet another television show that illustrates the need for thought and planning. I have found another television show that I love to hate to watch. It is Alaska Gold Rush on the Discovery […]

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by Dwayne Phillips As a manager, when an employee provides short, pleasing answers sound all the alarms you have. Ask more questions until you pull usable information from the employee. Manager: How are things going? Employee: Fine, okay. Manager: (thinks to herself) Great! I’ve communicated with the employee, and we are good. Gosh. How many […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Facebook puts a data center near the arctic circle. The natural cold air will cool the computers. Why is this news? Why is this hailed as a brilliant “green” action? It was December of 1980. We had a small room with a dozen racks of heat-producing equipment that needed to be cooled. […]

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by Dwayne Phillips All bureaucracies, in my experience, stop the flow of information at each level of the hierachy. About half the important information is stopped at each level. There is hope, but people at the top have to work hard at getting the information they are being denied. The title of this post is […]

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by Dwayne Phillips There are many pleasures that come with managing a project. One is learning that you didn’t ruin the people who worked with you. Author and consultant Jerry Weinberg once wrote: One of the pleasures of having your children grow up is seeing that you didn’t ruin them after all. My corollary of […]

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by Dwayne Phillips In government acquisition, the government employees make the decisions about projects. They often have to decide whether to continue or cancel a troubled project. The decision they often render is odd. I worked in government acquisition circles for over 25 years. One of the principle tenets of that field is: Contractor employees  […]

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by Dwayne Phillips When things are going well, be careful about adding more “good” things. An addition is a foreign element and will change the situation. I wish we had a bigger budget so we could do more of what we are doing now. Wishes are often like the above. Granting a wish will surely […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Government-hired contractors are like grandparents in that they will give you anything you want. Here is a request to government employees to be adults and only ask for things that are practical and will be used. I’ve worked in government acquisition since 1980. For 25+ years, I was on the government side […]

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