by Dwayne Phillips When you consider it, systems engineers do something that everyone already does. Right? Systems Engineers do a simple task: they ensure that all customer requirements are built, tested, and delivered. They keep lists and tables and all sorts of things that trace all work back to every customer requirement. So why do […]
Why Pay a Systems Engineer?
June 16th, 2014 · No Comments
Tags: People · Requirements · Systems · Work
The Sharing Economy: A Tale of Three Sons
June 12th, 2014 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips I have three adult sons. They are a study in delving into the sharing economy. I have three adult sons. One has a traditional paid job. He leaves his home five mornings a week, drives to an office, works, and receives a paycheck that is 100% of his income. A second son […]
Tags: Work
Jobs and Robots and All That
June 2nd, 2014 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips Automation is replacing human jobs. Sorry. That is bad news for people who want to work, and there is no way around it. Such is the nature of today’s new technologies. In recent centuries, new technology arrives and displaces workers. Those unemployed eventually find jobs in new industries that build and maintain […]
Tags: Change · Technology · Work
How to Concentrate All Day
March 20th, 2014 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips Focusing for a long period of time is contradictory, but it is possible. Graduate school in 1983 (yes, I am that old): I had to study a text on a new concept called object-oriented software. I don’t mean read the text, I mean read it, study it, master it. I faced a […]
The Peter Principle
March 13th, 2014 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips I read a classic management text. It is as true today as it was in 1969. When in college in the mid-1970s (yes, I am that old), an English professor spoke about the Peter Principle. This was a relatively new concept about how people rise to their level of incompetence. Work was […]
Eliminate Vice Solve the Problem
March 3rd, 2014 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips I am a problem solver. Sometimes, however, solving a problem is the worst thing to do. This story made the rounds recently about how our military is experimenting with small jolts of electricity to keep sleep-deprived troops awake. The electricity might have fewer bad side affects than the current treatment — lots […]
Tags: Change · Management · Problems · Work
A Sense (and Source) of Urgency
January 30th, 2014 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips A sense of urgency is obvious as people think, work, and move faster than when there is no such sense. There is a source of urgency that managers can find to help instill the sense. 1980, (yes, I am that old) I visited several contractors who were working with us. People moved […]
Tags: Management · Work
But That’s Your Job
November 28th, 2013 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips Further evidence that people tend to do only what they want to do while at work. Years ago, one of the guys in our office went missing. He was safe and sound, but we didn’t know it at the time. He was told to attend a meeting at a motel in another […]
Tags: Management · People · Work
A Timed Writing Technique
September 19th, 2013 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips I have been using a new writing technique lately in which I set a timer for uninterrupted writing, followed by a five-minute break, followed by another timed writing period. There are countless writing techniques. My advice for these techniques: Try the technique. If if works for you, use it. Otherwise, forget it. […]
Competition and Creativity
July 11th, 2013 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips Another age-old motivation technique that should probably go away. It was 30 years ago (yes, I am that old). The big boss of the organization was excited. A competing organization was trying to build a new product just like we were trying to build. By the way, we were both government organizations […]
Tags: Government · Management · Work