Working Up

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

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Discovery as an Unintended Result

April 14th, 2022 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Doing something that goes beyond what is required often leads to discovery, and discovery may be a wonderful unintended result. Many years ago (in the last century), I was involved in an upgrade to an existing system. There were new requirements that required new capabilities. Some of the computing hardware was to […]

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Tags: Alternatives · Design · Learning · People · Requirements · Solutions

It is Still About People

March 10th, 2022 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Pandemic, hybrid, remote—it is still about people. “Nobody quits companies. They quit managers.”—Satya Nadella, CEO Microsoft How do you manage distributed or remote teams? Same way you manage in any situation. (1) You don’t manage people. You manage work. You lead people. (2) You lead people who are remote the same way […]

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Tags: Communication · Leadership · Management · People · Remote Work · Work

Data, Value, Sense, Cents, and People

February 17th, 2022 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Data seems to be opposite of everything else when it comes to saving it, using it, and producing value. When we use things, they lose value. Drive a car a thousand miles and its loses value, i.e., no one will pay as much for a car with 1,000 miles as they will […]

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Tags: Data Science · General Systems Thinking · Money · People

Do or Do not

January 24th, 2022 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Regardless of position or circumstance, some people do things while others don’t. This appears to be one of those parts of human nature that have puzzled me for years. Given a situation, some persons will talk, think, talk, ignore, and employ just about every verb there is except for the forms of […]

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Tags: Competence · Energy · Management · People · Practice

Fat Finger the Database (misadventures in data entry)

October 11th, 2021 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Data entry, one of the lower-paid professions, is prone to errors, and some can be fatal. During the aftermath of the recent Hurricane Ida, a person close to me needed an essential service. By “essential” I mean if the service did not arrive, someone would die. I repeatedly called the service provider. […]

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Tags: Competence · Customer · Error · General Systems Thinking · Learning · Mistakes · People · Testing

The Denial of Service Attack

August 30th, 2021 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips What we saw with gas stations is known as a Denial of Service (DoS) attack. Flood a business with customers and the business fails. The scary part is that someone learned from the situation. Back in May of 2021 (boy, that seems like a long time ago), a pipeline was closed due […]

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Tags: Concepts · Customer · Failure · General Systems Thinking · Observation · People · Reaction

Build for Us, Hope They Might Use It

March 29th, 2021 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips We usually build things for ourselves. We then hope that someone else will use what we build. Sometimes we adapt to doing it right; sometimes not. A recent story related how we want 80-somethings to register for and then receive the virus vaccine. “All you have to do” is go online and… […]

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Tags: Design · General Systems Thinking · People · Systems

The Common Person

January 25th, 2021 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Thoughts about all those folks out there who seem to be doing something that the experts don’t like. 1980—it was a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away when I heard a woman telling foreign dignitaries about the common person in America. I didn’t approach her and hit her with […]

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Tags: Appearances · Fairy Tales · Integrity · Observation · People · Respect

Learnering

November 23rd, 2020 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips After being asked the same question for years, perhaps I have found the answer to, “What is it that you do?” I have spoken to many job recruiters. I have spoken to many persons in job interviews. Some of these persons ask a variation of the question: What is it that you […]

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Tags: General Systems Thinking · Learning · Management · People

No Parking, Fire Zone

August 9th, 2020 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips We each have threats that we value and threats that we ignore. I sit here in a coffee shop drinking plain old coffee while writing. In the year of the virus, persons walk in wearing their theatrical masks to show concern for a threat. They grab their coffee, walk out, and sit […]

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Tags: Change · Coffee · Differences · Health · People