Working Up

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

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Help Accepted…as long as

March 12th, 2018 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips We are usually happy to have outsiders walk in and help us. Help, however, comes with our conditions. We have so much work to do here, we will never catch up. Help? Of course we will accept help. What kind of help? Well, you know, someone like me, just like me, and […]

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Tags: Help · Work

Everyone but Us

January 14th, 2018 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Old adage, but still true. Something about pointing a finger at someone else means you have three fingers pointing at myself. The News Channel (fill in with your favorite news channel that you dislike) reports that corporations are greedy and only want more money. Of course, The News Channel is itself a […]

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Tags: Excuses · Work

Take a Nap (you have my permission)

January 4th, 2018 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Go ahead; we all know it is the best thing to do. Take a nap. A man at work struggling to read something and stay awake. Something was happening physically, low blood sugar or something like a gizzard malfunction. Sleep kept trying to drop a black hood over his head. He fought […]

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Tags: Nap · Rest · Work

The One-Person Silo

November 30th, 2017 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips We all like to have something we can call our own. We like to work on something and say, “I did that!” We have to decide if one of us is smarter than all of us. In Agile Development, somehow the team meets and decides on a new feature or fix for […]

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Tags: Adults · Respect · Synergy · Trust · Work

If you don’t know where you are going, any road will do

August 31st, 2017 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips This paraphrase from Through the Looking Class continues to reign in systems development. The title of this post is a famous paraphrase from the classic Through the Looking Glass. I live it most days. The conversation goes something like this: Me: The system won’t do such-and-such. Builder: Of course not. It wasn’t […]

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Tags: Adults · Agility · Commitment · Communication · Scope · Systems · Work

How did You Write that Book?

July 20th, 2017 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips The basic steps I have used to writing a professional, non-fiction book and having it published. I have written about half-a-dozen professional non-fiction books. The counting is a bit fuzzy when you include a second edition or two here and there. These were published by the IEEE and other publishers of such […]

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Tags: Work · Writing

Visa, Immigration, Jobs, Salaries

June 22nd, 2017 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Yes, immigration fuels the economy. I love it when skilled persons enter the US. The current situation, however, isn’t so lovely. The H-1B visa battle continues. Let’s step back to my naive childhood. America wants skilled persons to come here and improve much of this nation in many ways. We grant entrance […]

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Tags: America · Immigration · Jobs · Work

The Gig Economy, Odd Jobs with a Cool Name

May 25th, 2017 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Nothing new under the sun. The gig economy meandors, and some persons get by. I’ve been mulling this post for a while. As a coincidence, The New Yorker is running a long piece on it. When I was in high school, way back in the last century, in rural Louisiana, I knew […]

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Tags: Agility · Work

Political Polarization and being Just Plain Lazy

May 1st, 2017 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips I delve into politics or politicians and submit an ugly theory about polarization in American politics. American politics seem to be polarized more than in the last few generations. There are plenty of explanations and denials (see a recent New York Times story as an example). One explanation that makes a lot […]

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Tags: Adults · Work

Ready, Fire, Aim—or something like that

April 24th, 2017 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Sometimes we have to stop, go back to basics, and learn what we are trying to do before we try to do it. Stupid, right? How in the world could I run off and start working before knowing what it is I am supposed to do? Trust. Someone I trusted told me […]

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Tags: Analysis · Clarity · Work