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 […]
Discovery as an Unintended Result
April 14th, 2022 · No Comments
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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. […]
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 […]
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… […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Tags: Change · Coffee · Differences · Health · People