Working Up

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

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Resourceful

January 19th, 2026 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips To be effective in one way or another, gather resources. resourceful: adjective, having the ability to find quick and clever ways to overcome difficulties. Hmm. That is not the definition I expected, but that is what comes from Google’s English dictionary provided by Oxford Languages. You know, that place in England where […]

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Tags: Learning · Notebook · Problems · Reading · Resources · Solutions

With Great Certainty

December 22nd, 2025 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips I often hear people speak with great certainty. Further consideration, however, reveals almost no certainty. People like to speak with great certainty. I write those words because I often hear people speak with great certainty. If people don’t like to do that, why do they do it almost all the time? Great […]

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Tags: Clarity · Communication · Honesty · Leadership · Problems · Talk

Predictable (yikes!)

October 23rd, 2025 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips It isn’t flattering to understand that what I do is quite predictable. Ah these AI chattering bots—they are amazing. Type a question, they call it a prompt, in plain English and out pops answers, sometimes as long as books, in plain English. This is amazing! Well, the software looks at a bunch […]

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Tags: Analysis · Artificial Intelligence · Context · Jobs · Problems · Work · Writing

The Exception

August 21st, 2025 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips We do everything according to our documented documents—except when we don’t. Mr. Zuckerburg at Meta has created a superintelligence group to do something wonderful in AI. He is using the tried-and-true documented management practice of the skunk works. The skunk works is a special place where you put some really smart folks […]

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Tags: Competence · Experiment · Expertise · Learning · Management · Problems · Process

New Tools, Modified Techniques

July 28th, 2025 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips New tools sometimes allow us to modify the techniques we use. The new tools don’t require modification, but allow it. These kids today, these engineers and scientists under 30, they just … well, they just do things differently. They have new tools (and I have new tools). They work the way the […]

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Tags: Artificial Intelligence · Problems · Solutions · Technology · Tools · Word · Work

Unlucky Tester

April 24th, 2025 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Despite temporary angst, we want the tester who has the bad luck of doing something that finds the errors in our computer programs. A while back, my grandson was writing a program on our kitchen computer. He was writing some type of game where you picked a number and something happened on […]

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Tags: Computing · Error · Problems · Programming · Technology · Testing

A Problem with the Specific Example

March 31st, 2025 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips I can introduce problems by asking others to consider a specific example. Often, a general example works better. Years ago, author and consultant Jerry Weinberg was leading a session on how to lead sessions. Jerry began with, “feel the sand between your toes on the exotic beach with the surf gently sounding […]

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Tags: Concepts · Context · Experiment · Learning · Problems · Teaching · Thinking

Feel Fill-In-The-Blank for Ten Minutes

December 30th, 2024 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips We have emotions. That is fine. Feel fill-in-the-blank fully and deeply for ten minutes. Get over it and move on. About ten years ago I was writing proposals for a company. The day before I had finished a couple of pages for a proposal. New orders came down. “We decided to change […]

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Tags: Change · Chaos · Life · Problems · Respect · Time · Work

AI Assistant (Nothing New Here)

October 28th, 2024 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Here come the AI assistants. They will do amazing things for us. Nothing new here. We’ve had these for decades. Nice, but not new. I’ve seen several AI assistants recently. They are usually called “agents.” Well, “agent” is shorter and easier to spell than “assistant,” so I guess that is an improvement. […]

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Tags: Artificial Intelligence · Ideas · Problems · Software · Solutions · Technology

Little Steps to Nonsense

October 14th, 2024 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Yes, we accept a few things that aren’t great, but that’s okay. When, however, is enough enough? Okay, we know this isn’t correct, but let’s let this little one slide in because it will make for peace in the big picture. You know, let someone see their idea implemented. They will feel […]

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Tags: Ideas · Management · Problems · Stupid · Thinking