First Things Fast: A Handbook for Performance Analysis

April 15, 2007

Filed under: analysis,book,bridge — ebeale @ 6:10 pm

A hands-on guide to planning and consultation, with an emphasis on tools, tales, templates, speed, sources, and systems.

Title: First Things Fast: A Handbook for Performance Analysis
Author: Allison Rossett
APA citation: Rossett, A. (1999).Â First things fast: A handbook for performance analysis. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer.
Summary: How do you figure out what to do? This book offers you strategies to answer that question. It’s a hands-on guide to planning and consultation, with an emphasis on tools, tales, templates, speed, sources, and systems. First Things Fast is the quick start you need to surmount resistance to investigating performance.
My Comments: I really want to like this book, but it ends up being heavy on words and examples, and short on organization. Why are certain topics sequenced the way they are? I’m left wondering how someone with engineering experience would sequence this book. What’s valuable? Using Drivers to Define Solutions, table 3.4 helps put real words to the drivers, and offers several solutions in human-readable language. The strategies in chapter 4 are valuable, provided you are able to differentiate between a Rollout, Problem, or Development (people or strategy). To understand many of the taxinometric ideas, you normally must re-read several chapters. The concepts are not sticky by themselves, but with repeated use might become standard methods.

Comment by ebeale — April 22, 2007 @ 2:47 pm