Working Up

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

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Brute Force and Ignorance

September 23rd, 2024 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Sometimes you just lower your head against a wall and push as hard as you can. Let’s begin this little blog post by noting that I attended LSU—not MIT, Carnegie Mellon, Stanford or any of those places known for producing really smart people. At LSU, we may not be able to spell […]

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Tags: Adapting · Alternatives · Commitment · Education · Expertise · Tools

Hand Jamming

June 17th, 2024 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips When building systems, reduce the amount of intricate typing required by users. Sometimes we forget this and require too much hand jamming. I ran across the phrase “hand jamming” recently at work. I hadn’t heard that in years. I was happy to hear that some people still knew it and knew what […]

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Tags: Design · Error · Mistakes · Simple · Tools · User · Writing

That Won’t Work or It Shouldn’t Work

May 27th, 2024 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips There are techniques, tools, methodologies, etc. that won’t work—until they do. They shouldn’t work—until they do. What is happening here? Many years ago, we were sitting in a conference room watching a presentation video on a television. The television has a cathode ray tube with a curved glass cover (I wrote that […]

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Tags: Alternatives · Practice · Process · Reality · Success · Tools · Work

Higher Expectations for Human Intelligence

April 29th, 2024 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips These chattering bots can “generate” all sorts of information. Humans must do more and better to keep their paying jobs. I recently sat in a lecture about some worthwhile topic. The lecturer started with, “There are eight aspects to this topic that we will cover in the next ten sessions.” The lecturer […]

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Tags: Artificial Intelligence · Change · Expectations · Expertise · Improvement · Tools

Typing and Interruptions

April 11th, 2024 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Reducing the time spent typing on the keyboards reduces the number of interruptions. There are new tools that reduce both. I can type fairly fast. At least I give myself credit for that. Like everyone else, I am interrupted while typing. I could estimate number of interruptions per hour or some rate […]

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Tags: Artificial Intelligence · Improvement · Mistakes · Technology · Time · Tools · Writing

You Are Too Good, You Are Fired

October 30th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Sometimes some persons excel to the point where they need to be fired. You have outgrown what we do here. You are much more capable than we need. You are fired. Those words don’t make sense. If someone has improved and improved, we want them to stay with us, right? Perhaps not. […]

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Tags: Adapting · Growth · Jobs · Learning · Technology · Tools

A Word Multiplier

October 23rd, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips These new chattering bots like ChatGPT are great word multipliers. Do we need word multipliers? That is the question. Try this at home: I am now up to 2,500 words in ten minutes. In another ten minutes I will have 5,000 words. In an hour I will have 50,000 words. 50,000 words […]

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Tags: Artificial Intelligence · Questions · Software · Technology · Tools · Writing

Accelerate the Learning

October 19th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Learning is good as it leads to better performance and other beneficial things. There are tools available that accelerate learning. Let’s use those. I try to learn. Sometimes I forget to learn. Yes, fatigue clobbers my mind and I simply forget to notice things, store them, and use them. There are tools […]

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Tags: Competence · Energy · Fatigue · Growth · Humility · Improvement · Learning · Thinking · Tools

Not a Writer (?)

September 11th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Are you not a writer? Really. Just type the words you say. “You must understand, Dwayne, you are a writer,” several people over the years. Yes, I am cursed or blessed to be “a writer.” What do I do? I put my fingers on the keyboard and type the words that come […]

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Tags: Communication · Technology · Thinking · Tools · Word · Writing

Linus’ Law

July 17th, 2023 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Let’s do what we can do bring more people into the solution-providing space. I am going to repeat some things I wrote in a blog post in 2015. In researching today’s post, I found that old post and wondered a bit at how good it was. Anyway, Linus’ Law is: “given enough […]

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Tags: Education · People · Problems · Solutions · Tools