by Dwayne Phillips We reward the fireman, the person who extinguishes a fire. Did the fireman, however, start the fire? I used to see this often. I worked in a place where engineers would plan projects and deliver systems per their plans. The trouble was: the engineers were terrible planners. They were good system designers […]
The Fireman Arsonist
April 1st, 2024 · No Comments
Tags: Design · Engineering · Planning · Record · Systems · Work
Like Us or Like Some of Us
March 11th, 2024 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips We want AI systems to act like us. Or do we? Perhaps we want AI systems to act like some of us. But who is “us” and who is “not us?” Testing shows that the latest and greatest large language models will generate bad information about political campaigns. That is wrong; those […]
Tags: Artificial Intelligence · Censorship · Computing · Concepts · General Systems Thinking · Systems
Things Are the Way the Are
July 27th, 2023 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips Things are the way they are. But why? An old saying explains much of the reason. There is an old but little known saying, “Things are the way they are because they got that way.” Pause to consider. Yes, of course the saying is correct. We are here because everything and everyone […]
Tags: Accountability · General Systems Thinking · History · Learning · Systems
No More and No Less
July 20th, 2023 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips When we build systems, build them to do and have no more and no less than we intend. A few pseudo definitions: The users says, “I want a system that does this and that is and like this and that.” The builders say among themselves, “We can do those things and a […]
Tags: Accountability · Design · Engineering · Requirements · Systems
Hobby Programming and AI (low-code/no-code)
May 22nd, 2023 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips Recent advances in chatting or Q&A software has provided the ability to write simple computer programs. Hooray! There is a trend in the workplace called “low-code/no-code.” A person at work writes a ten-line computer program that is helpful in that it will do something in a minute that would take the person […]
Tags: Adapting · Artificial Intelligence · Change · Computing · Programming · Systems
The Stupid Hunters (still hunting down stupid everywhere)
May 8th, 2023 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips Aha! I was sort of right. Now companies have teams of folks hunting down stupid in their systems to keep the world safe from stupid. Way back in 2015, I wrote a blog post about being a stupid hunter. This is not a hunter who is stupid, but a hunter whose job […]
Tags: Analysis · Artificial Intelligence · Competence · Stupid · Systems · Technology · Testing · Visibility · Work
Understanding by Walking Around
March 16th, 2023 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips It is rare that we can understand something from one and only one perspective. We need to walk around the other sides to gain other perspectives. There is a method of describing something called the DoD Architecture Framework or DoDAF. Sometimes DoDAF is quite useful, but sometimes persons misuse it and … […]
Tags: Communication · Design · Scale · Systems · Thinking · Visibility
First Comes Love, Then Comes Marriage, …
February 20th, 2023 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips Events occur in a set order, unless they don’t. Thought is encouraged. The title is from a nursery rhyme (origin unknown by me). The third event is a baby in a baby carriage. Events occur in a set order. Breakfast-lunch-dinner. Entree then desert. Eat breakfast, then brush your teeth (or is that […]
Tags: Design · Learning · Rest · Systems · Testing · Thinking · Work
Deciding
December 29th, 2022 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips One of the fundamentals in the engineering of systems and architecture is a “D” word that many loathe in our 21st century. “Let’s hold off on this until we have to decide,” said a hopeful inhabitant of a post-modern universe. Yes, there are things that we don’t have to decide until we […]
Tags: Choose · Decide · Engineering · General Systems Thinking · Systems
Verification and Validation
December 15th, 2022 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips This is yet another fundamental to providing systems that delight users. Have we validated that we verified before vacation? Or is it the other way around? There was a time when verification and validation were so commonly used that we called it “V&V.” Then we wanted independent persons to perform V&V so […]
Tags: Customer · General Systems Thinking · Requirements · Systems · Testing · User