Working Up

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

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PMP Certification

May 17th, 2011 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips I  obtain the PMI’s Project Management Professional certification. It seemed that every request for proposal that we received from the government wanted the same thing: a certified project manager.  It didn’t matter that a person, like me, had years of experience, three degrees, and had written several books on project management (like […]

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Tags: Learning · Management · Work

Desirements

May 12th, 2011 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Systems are built to satisfy the requirements of the user. Sometimes, engineers want to add things, i.e., they desire to add things. Such are “desire-ments,” and they can kill projects. I walked into an existing project. Well, I  wasn’t in the middle of the project, but I was to work with a […]

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Tags: Fun · General Systems Thinking · Requirements · Work

The Tooth Fairy

April 21st, 2011 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips The tooth fairy does not exist. No amount of wishing, hoping, dreaming, and whatever it is that children do when a baby tooth falls from their mouth, will change that fact. Sometimes – many times – adults at work wish there is a tooth fairy and we wish we can just jump […]

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Tags: Fable · Problems · Thinking · Work

No Live Demos

March 10th, 2011 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Some 25 years ago, I learned something that has stayed with me. The reason it has stayed with me is that it still holds true: Don’t depend on live demos. The title of this post is a statement made often by one of my advisors in graduate school way back at LSU […]

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Tags: Management · Process · Technology · Work

Return on Specification Investment

February 3rd, 2011 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips How specific should a system specification be? How many resources should the spec consume? I propose a measure to help answer these questions – the Return on Specification Investment. A few years ago, I was reviewing a specification for a system that someone in the office had written. I came to one […]

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Tags: Communication · Design · Requirements · Systems · Technology · Work

Half the Job

January 27th, 2011 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips An old lesson holds true today: getting the tools and people to the job site is half the job. Twenty-five years ago, I was involved in a fence-building project. Members of the community gathered to start from scratch and erect a 50-meter-long fence. I was one of the first people there and […]

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Tags: Communication · Learning · Management · Work

Compliant vs Compelling

January 24th, 2011 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Compliant meets the minimum requirements while compelling puts some excitement into a product. Still, I would be satisfied with compliance when it comes to dishwasher delivery and installation. I ran into the phrase that inspired the title of this post one day last week. We were writing a proposal for a contract. […]

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Tags: Communication · Expectations · Work · Writing

Thinking vs Talking Postures

January 10th, 2011 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips People use one set of postures for thinking. There are another set of postures that make it easy for other people to hear what you are saying when you are talking. Please try to switch postures when thinking and then talking. This request is especially strong when in meeting with other people. […]

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Tags: Communication · Meetings · People · Work

A Lot of Work

September 27th, 2010 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips A list of activities that are a lot of work. On a recent visit with family in Louisiana, a group of us discussed: decorating cakes for weddings sewing and making clothes cooking for 50 people and a few more things like these The consensus was these are a lot of work. To […]

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Tags: Family · Process · Time · Work · Writing

More Difficult People, Reframing, and Changing Me

September 6th, 2010 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips In an earlier post, I discussed difficult people and reframing statements. Once again, I meet a difficult person. Once again, I can choose how frame the situation, and once again I can choose how to live and work. I worked with a different set of people this week. Some of those people […]

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Tags: Change · Choose · Reframe · Work