Performance Books

Mr. Grote tells it like it is, and I loved his approach in this book. It's presented in a question & answer format where he presents a question that is just about everyone's mind who conducts performance appraisals for employees, and he answers it with a short answer then a longer and more detailed answer. The best line is when he says, "Supervisors put up with too much [stuff]otherwise writes very well and straightforward, and strongly pushed the responsibility for improvement back to the employee, not the manager. Thank you for liberating me! He spends a good deal of the book on performance planning as well, an often underutilized tool to set an employee up for success.

I work for a dept. with a state government and Grote's comprehensive performance management system was implemented several years ago. It works! Takes the indecision, inconsistency, and the bias/subjectivity out of perform. mgt. It is systematic. This text is excellent & thorough. Addresses in practical ways MANY of the problems that mgrs. run into when doing performance evals. (your ratings are defensible when you have a difficult employee). I found that it was easy to read and to apply. It gives you knowledge & confidence. I have "highlighted" throughout this book and refer to it often. It is my Performance Eval. "bible". We also use Grote's Discipline Without Punishment (DWOP) system also. I recommend his book of the same title also. Excellent system. Definitely not "wimpy"! Takes the indecision, inconsistency, and the bias/subjectivity out of office discipline. It is systematic and defensible also.

Although this book was first published in 2002, I only recently read it and, as my rating correctly indicates, I think it is an outstanding piece of work. Performance measurement is one of the most important and yet least understood business subjects and it is certain to become even more important during the next several years as organizations become more "virtual" and many of those involved with them become "free agents" or are at least more independent. Also, on average, people now make 7-9 job changes during a career. The average for those in my generation is half of that, if not less. Grote wrote this book primarily for managers who are responsible for measuring the performance of others.

A relatively recent and (in my opinion) promising trend is that, increasingly, one of the metrics used for evaluating the performance of a manager is how well she or he measures the performance of others. That is the subject for another book which Grote, perhaps, will one day write.

Given the substance of the material in this book and how Grote wishes to organize and then present it, the Q&A format seems eminently appropriate. He adds a clever variation: The inclusion of "Tell Me More" comments after his initial response to each core question. I greatly appreciate the personal, conversational tone which Grote establishes and then sustain in each of his three books, the other two being Discipline Without Punishment and Forced Ranking. He comes about as close as a business thinker/writer can to seeming to interact directly with his reader.

Obviously, this book will be of primary interest and value to supervisors but I also highly recommend it to those who are supervised. Now more than ever before, it is imperative to make crystal clear what expectations are and how performance relative to those expectations is measured, especially during interviews of candidates and then, once hired, during their orientation...which few organizations do well. (That is another book awaiting someone to produce it.) As Grote would be among the first to point out, the results of countless research studies which examine employee satisfaction concur that feeling appreciated, believing in the value of the work done, and having one's performance evaluated fairly and consistently are among the attributes which participants in the research studies considered to be most important. Also revealing is the fact that, depending upon which results are consulted, compensation was ranked anywhere from #9 and #14 in importance.

Those who share my high regard for this book are urged to check out Grote's other two as well as Michael Ray's The Highest Goal and The Oz Principle co-authored by Craig Hickman, Tom Smith, and Roger Connors; also Mark Samuel's Creating the Accountable Organization and The Power Of Personal Accountability, co-authored with Sophie Chiche.

I found the book very easy to follow, and the principles and concepts were down-to-earth. The author gives a no-nonsense approach in performance appraisals, using common-sense and throws out all the other HR mumbo-jumbo. He also lays out a good argument for tying the PA to the company's objectives and missions, ideas on employee motivation (forget the "employee of the month" ideas), how to deal with difficult reviewees (those who just don't understand how their performance is bad), and the best way to handle performance planning meetings at the beginning of the year and the importance of these.

I'd like to know the auther. Please send his email address to me. Thanks

Although this is book is starting to get a little dated, it remains an outstanding resource for practitioners working in performance appraisal settings, and especially for researchers looking for a good overview of the topic. Particularly strong chapters cover topics including training raters (Hauenstein), politics in the performance appraisal process (Kozlowski et al.), and fairness in PA (Gilliland & Langdon). Chapters that have become somewhat outdated include the chapters on legal trends in PA (Malos) and multisource feedback (Dalessio). I still use selections from this book when teaching courses on performance appraisal, and I have only docked it one star due to its age. In most respects, this is a must-have book for anyone interested in performance management.

As stated by series editor Manuel London, "the current volume, edited by J.W. Smither, provides state-of-the-art methods for performance management. The authors recognize the strategic, systemic role of a performance appraisal process that evaluates employees or behaviors that are important to organizational success and ties the appraisal results to rewards and development...The goal is to design a performance appraisal process that is fair and applies in different organizational situations and contexts. New forms of appraisal are described, such as 360-degree survey feedback and self-assessment. The book shows how to increase rater accuracy and how to use appraisals for employee development. Overall, the book is valuable resource to practitioners who want to evaluate and revamp their appraisal systems to meet the changing needs of their organizations."

In this context, as a sample, in thirteenth chapter of this book " Performance-Based Pay Plans" Robert L. Heneman and Maria T. Gresham focus the issue of how organizations can most effectively make the link between performance appraisal and compensation and incentive systems. As stated by them " this requires an understanding of the need for performance-based pay, the compensation context, types of reward systems, design issues, and implementation issues." Thus each of this topics have been examined as a literature review :

* types of pay and performance plans : merit pay, team-based merit pay, skill-based pay, competency-based pay, piece-rate pay, standart hour plan, group incentives, suggestion systems, team recognition plans, gainsharing, sales commissions and team sales plans, profit sharing and stock sharing, executive pay.

* pay and performance plan effectiveness.

* design issue : integration with business strategy and organizational culture, motivational considerations, performance measurement levels.

* implementation issues : measurement, fairness, communications.

Not only this chapter, but this book as a whole is highly recommended for HR professionals.

See also : Maximizing the Value of 360-Degree Feedback - Walter Tornow, Manuel London

Dr. Smither has pulled together a wonderful group of authors in developing a book that covers the most important aspects of performance appraisal. A must-have for those engaged in this often difficult aspect of management.

I purchased this book on sight, having had Dr Menasce's class. It is a reasonably easy introduction to his brand of performance modeling. I don't understand why this approach isn't more well known.

His operating systems class was one of the most memorable that I took at GMU (over a decade ago). I don't know how many other Operating Systems professors take his approach in focusing on queuing theory in modeling performance problems, but his approach is enlightening.

Using one of his performance models, we were (in class) able to tweak the performance characteristics of the various (modeled) components and watch bottlenecks move from one device to another, underscoring how you can reach a point where improving performance in the wrong component can be a waste, while making small improvements in the bottleneck can provide much better (often linear) improvements.

Capacity and Performance management is a very complex subject. I have read a couple of books. Most of them had dry theory without supporting examples. In some cases, I abruptly stopped reading. These type of books may be good to people who are quite fresh from the academic world. Having worked for sometime, one would desire a book with simple but strong fundamentals and more of relating examples.

This book stood out to my quest. The pace of the coverage was gradual from Gear 1 to Overdrive. Every ounce of theory was supported with examples. Normally I would skip theory and look for examples. But here I enjoyed reading theory. Well Written!

The Case Studies were real world examples. I gained a lot reading this book. Would recommend this book for Technology professionals who want to switch to Capacity and Performance Management.

I would definitely want Mr Menasce and his team to write books on the same topic to address real world end-to-end and new challenges like Petri Nets, Technology Consolidation, Data Warehousing, GRID, Utility Computing, Virtualisation etc. This should definitely help the Technology Community at large.

"Performance by Design" provides both a conceptual and a practical framework for experienced software developers that want to get started building quality applications using performance engineering techniques.

Performance engineering is a discipline that attempts to integrate concerns about the responsiveness of computer applications and their capacity requirements into standard application development practices, which otherwise focus almost exclusively on meeting functional requirements. Just like not getting the functional spec right in the early stages of the application development lifecycle can lead to a cascading series of design and implementation decisions that are difficult to reverse in later stages of the development process, neglecting performance considerations until after the applications has met its functional requirements is often too late to tackle them effectively.

The first part of the book surveys a wide range of performance modeling and capacity planning techniques, served up in clear, concise language with a minimum of mathematics. It is a gentle introduction to analytic queuing networks written at the level that any advanced undergraduate Computer Science student ought to be able to master. The heart of the book, representing Chapters 5 through 9, is a series of Case Studies that rounds out and concludes Part 1. Each of the case studies deftly illustrates another analytic technique that a performance engineer needs to understand how to apply. Chapter 5, for instance, steps through descriptive statistics and cluster analysis as it discusses what is involved in deriving model parameters for a simple database transaction workload. Chapter 6 builds upon this discussion by solving a simple multi-class model, delving into confidence limits and the use of a factorial design to limit the number of trials of a benchmark experiment. Finally, Chapter 9 illustrates using software performance engineering techniques to model a new application during its initial development phases, beginning with the database design.

The first half of the book is designed to stand alone if the Reader doesn't have the stomach for the rigorous mathematical treatment of analytic queuing models that characterizes Part 2. The second half of the book should be familiar territory to readers of Menasce's other books on performance modeling, beginning with Markov chains and proceeding through Mean Value Analysis. The final two chapters describe approaches to modeling serialization delays and servers that have load-dependent performance characteristics, two topics that are essential to accurate models of application-level performance.

The great challenge of the performance engineering approach is how to persuade experienced applications developers to adopt these techniques. "Performance by Design" is aimed at getting software developers to pay closer attention to performance concerns throughout the application development life cycle. Compared to other books on the subject, this may be the best attempt yet to promote the practice of performance engineering as a discipline that deserves to be integrated into the wider context of application development.

This team of authors has produced yet another invaluable book for practitioners who perform capacity and performance planning, as well as students who are introduced to this topic for the first time. Unlike earlier works by the authors, which addressed performance in specific systems environments such as client/server, e-business and web services, this book is more general. Therein lies the true value - it teaches the fundamentals and will not be soon outdated.

The book is structured into two parts - Part I consists of four chapters that lay the foundation. Chapter 1 covers system life cycles, Chapter 2 moves the reader from systems to descriptive models of the systems, and Chapters 3 and 4 delve into the essence of performance - quantifying performance models and giving a performance engineering methodology. This material is reinforced with five chapters, each of which is a case study of a specific performance problem. These include database services, web servers, data center, e-business services and help-desk services.

Part II, The Theory of Performance Engineering, addresses the underlying knowledge that performance and capacity planners will need in order to approach their tasks using true quantitative methods. The six chapters in this part of the book cover the following topics in detail, and are clearly and succinctly written: Markov models, single queue systems, single class MVA (Mean Value Analysis), queuing models with multiple classes, queuing models with load dependent devices, and non product-form queuing models. Armed with a knowledge of these fundamentals you should be able to tackle complex performance and capacity problems, both in the software engineering domain when a system is being designed, and in the operational support domain when service level management and availability are the goals. In addition to the way the authors step you through complex math in a clear, easy-to-understand manner, this material is augmented by Microsoft Excel workbooks that bring the material to life. Nearly every chapter has associated workbooks and spreadsheets that can be downloaded from the web site that supports this book, adding considerably to the value of the material.

If you are new to performance planning as a discipline this should be the first book you read on the subject. If you teach performance planning, this is an ideal text around which you can base a curriculum that will prepare your students for real world challenges.

The five stars rating is not enough. No need to say more words after all the previous reviews.

An excelent help for managing a business. Very practical, proven in real businesses and related with high level strategy

I rarely get excited about textbooks, but this particular treatment of strategy, balancing leading and lagging indicators with a view of past, present and future, was enlightening. This book should be a "must read" for any mid- or senior- level manager. It shows how to make your decisions more fact-based and less 'art'. With the coming of age of "management of knowledge" this is a great tool to use to improve business processes. Definitely worth every single penny spent - but especially if you are interested in learning tangible methods!

WITHOUT QUESTION this book is the best practical business text I have ever read. Thank you Robert for unequivocally adding value - in a meaningful and tangible way that can be taken to the market and capitalised on. It's books like this that inspire me to invest (what would otherwise be leisure) time in learning & continuing my education.

The book is clear, concise, comprehensive & practical, and helped wrap together many general strategy concepts into an effective action based set of implementation tools. VERY, VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

I find this book to be a valuable reference book on HPLC. I work extensively with HPLC and I can always rely on it to provide the in-depth explanations of what's going on. It covers all aspects of method development, form deciding where to start and figuring out what's going wrong, to finishing the method and validating it, although the validation chapter is just an overview. As of 2007, it's still relatively up to date, regarding new column technologies and latest practices.
I really recommend this book, if it's your first time developing a method or if you're a seasoned professional, you will find many useful chapters in the book.

This is a very useful reference to have if you work extensively on HPLC. I find its of more use to understand concepts ...there is a lot of information here.

Which means - if you are looking for a solution to a problem and you want to research separation theory - a great book.

If your looking for a quick fix to an HPLC problem - not as good. This is a detailed, extensive and well written text on HPLC Method development - wish there was more on validation here though.

The book is useful for gerenal operator who are both novice and expert. It do is pratice. It's better give another chapter for troubleshooting and maintence.

Rational Method development for HPLC is resented. Instruction of rational development of 3-solvent separation system is excellent. This book also has useful know-hows and tools in practical laboratory experiments, such as strength of hydrogen bonding of base silica and nomograph for estimation of "solvent strength" for reversed phase HPLC.

Profit for Life shatters the old paradigm that success in business means sucking the life from people and natural resources by viewing both as dispensable commodities. By showing us how success in business--including big business--goes hand-in-hand with respect for human and natural communities, Bragdon frees us from the wrenching misconception that profit and citizenship represent a kind of zero-sum game.

Bragdon unites head and heart in one of the most uplifting books I have ever read. Profit for Life offers hope with a firm footing. I recommend Profit for Life to anyone with an interest in business management, strategic investment, or corporate citizenship.

Daniel D. Dutcher, J.D., Ph.D.
Project Director
The Clean Energy Group
Montpelier, Vermont

Book Review for Profit for Life: How Capitalism Excels
by Ann McGee-Cooper

How do you measure the value of servant leadership in business? How can we know it works? These have been two of the most frequently asked questions in our consulting practice over the past 30 years.

In Profit for Life, Jay Bragdon provides us with some compelling answers. He does this by setting aside much of the linear cause-and-effect thinking that drives business these days, and adopts a more rounded, holistic approach that gives us deeper insight into the firm.

The book is based on the experiences of 60 companies - Bragdon's "learning lab" - that broadly represent the industry/sector diversity of the world economy. Throughout the text he describes 16 of these pioneering companies, called the Focus Group. The distinguishing feature of all these firms is their effort to mimic living systems - in the ways they organize, manage and add value. This mental model is radically different from the traditional one that views the firm as a money making machine.

Although it may seem counter intuitive, the living system approach yields vastly superior results than the traditional one. For example, the average equity return of learning lab companies was nearly double the S&P 500 over the past decade; and their excess performance continues as this review is written. Bragdon expects such premium returns will diminish over time as the more effective methods of the living system model become copied and enter the mainstream. Nevertheless, these results are a strong affirmation of the milieu in which servant leadership normally operates.

Servant leadership, to Bragdon, is all about relationships. He says "relational equity" is the foundation on which companies build financial equity. When companies care about people and the things people care about, Employees become inspired and their inspiration cascades into everything they do, including their relationships with customers, suppliers and other key stakeholders.

The raison d'etre of these servant-led firms is value creation - value that permeates all relationships. Companies that excel at such value creation pursue a strategy Bragdon calls "living asset stewardship" (LAS). The fundamental premise of LAS is: Profit arises from life, and must therefore serve life if it is to be sustainable.

To understand the strategic value of living asset stewardship, Bragdon makes a critical distinction between living assets (people and Nature) and non-living capital assets (buildings, equipment and financial reserves). We see this in three contexts. First, people are closely bonded to Nature - genetically, physically and spiritually - in ways that capital assets are not. Second, living assets are the source of non-living capital assets. And third, because living assets are inherently creative and emergent, their value grows over time rather than depreciating as capital assets do.

The operating leverage in the learning lab and the 16 Focus Group companies resides in the human heart rather than in mechanistic financial gearing. This is supported by the fact that they generate consistently higher returns on equity while carrying substantially lower debt ratios.

Although traditionally managed companies have been adopting some stewardship practices in the past decade, Bragdon finds their approach differs fundamentally from those in his study. In the mechanistic view of these firms, stewardship is an add-on that is subservient to their drive for profit. By contrast, in companies that have adopted the living system model, LAS is deeply woven into the value creation process - reflecting the fact that they see themselves as "living" and therefore integral to, rather than separate from, Nature and society.

Profit for Life builds on the brilliant work of Arie deGeus, former coordinator of Group Planning at Royal Dutch/Shell, and Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson. DeGeus' classic, The Living Company, noted that long-lived companies had a collective consciousness, were sensitive to their environments, tried to work in harmony with the world around them, and strove to leave a legacy to future generations. Wilson tells us this collective consciousness is an expression of humanity's deep affinity for life, which he calls "biophilia," and that our biophilic instincts have evolved over thousands of generations of natural selection.

In my work as a teacher of servant leadership, I would highlight the paradigm shift Bragdon describes. The mission of leaders in LAS organizations is to serve and grow their people because that is the source of the firm's liveliness and capacity for growth. As Robert K. Greenleaf said: "The first order of business is to build a group of people who, under the influence of the institution, grow taller and become healthier, stronger and more autonomous." That seminal quote is used twice in the book to describe the power and generative capacity of LAS.

I highly recommend this book and will be using it regularly in our practice.

Ann McGee-Cooper, Ed.D., Business Consultant & Executive coach
in the field of Servant Leadership & growing Learning Organization.
Ann McGee-Cooper & Associates, Inc.

I intend to recommend Profit for Life to all my current MBA students. Next fall I am team teaching an MBA core course that combines Operations Management and Managerial Accounting. I intend to make the case that your book should be required reading and part of the course.

I became familiar with the work of W. Edwards Deming in 1990 and attended one of his four day seminars a year later. I also began to follow Peter Senge's work and later read Margaret Wheatley's book, Leadership and the New Science. Tom Johnson's book, Profit Beyond Measure, has been required reading in my Advanced Managerial Accounting elective at the MBA level.

Bragdon's book has brought the ideas, theories, and concepts discussed by these individuals together for me in a way that I could not have imagined. More importantly, he has not only taken their ideas to the next level, but done it in a way that provides a tangible blue print for how to change our current style of command and control management with its focus on profit maximization to a LAS Theory of Management.

The use of the sixteen focus companies from the LAMP INDEX and the author's ability ability to clearly show the distinctions in their style of management from the traditional management models that continue to be taught in almost all business schools, and the success these companies have achieved not just financially, gives those of us hoping to change management education and core business curriculums a new hope.

Thank you for such an outstanding book.

Joseph F. Castellano
Professor, Department of Accounting
University of Dayton Business School

This is not one of those lightweight business books that repeats its Chapter 1 message over and over. It's chock full of research-based information that anyone involved in the sustainability movement should have. The publisher is Peter Senge's non-profit, so if you're familiar with his excellent work over the years, this would make a great addition to your library. The author's passion for his subject is obvious from page one.

Truly a unique Interviewing and Career Enhancement tool. Walks you through step by step assisting you in organizing past performance,achievements, and future direction. As a hiring manager, an individual who presented this in an interview would truly get noticed.

RMSNSLIP

How can a job hunter build a career portfolio and land a new job based on proving performance levels? Proof Of Performance tells how to handle interview questions which ask for such proof. Employers want proof to support claims of performance; this tells how to build a portfolio which presents just such proof.

I have read this book from cover to cover. There are wisdom-filled ideas to help any age career changer. Don't miss this one! Finally, someone who has been in the trenches is giving advice that can be extremely useful when preparing for the all important interview. Just do it! I am using my Proof of Performance portfolio and it works!! I am much more in control of the process and continue to add to my documented success. The system is not complicated. I love it. You will too.

Rick Nelles' Proof Of Performance: How To Build A Career Portfolio To Land A Great New Job focuses on the job interview process and offers an effective strategy for success. Nelles shows why the job seeker requires a proof of performance portfolio; how attitudes make a world of difference in an interview; what should be a part of every effective portfolio; how to document performance and assemble testimonials; which interview questions to be prepared for; when and how to present the portfolio within the interview process; and how to best close the interview. Proof Of Performance is enthusiastically recommended reading for anyone seeking to secure an upgrade in their employment history and to enhance their career choices and chances for long term success.

I have been involved in architecting and designing Microsoft based business intelligence solutions for the past 8 years. I was very excited when PerformancePoint was launched because it filled a very real need in the Microsoft BI platform. It is always a challenge to find training material when a new product is launched so Adrian and Nick's books have been released at just the right time.
I enjoyed both books(The Rational Guide To Monitoring and Analyzing with Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 (Rational Guides),The Rational Guide To Planning with Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 (Rational Guides)) for the following reasons:
They are clear and simple to understand
They highlight the most important techinical and functional considerations without being too high level
They are practical and not theoretical even though the first few chapters set the scene
You don't need to be a subject matter expert to understand them
They are short so you can read them very quickly

They are great books that will allow you to get up to speed very quickly on PerformancePoint Monitoring and Analytics as well as Planning.

Highly recommended! Barclay and Downs have written a fine and very accessible book, which fulfills the Rational Guide promise - not of being technical bibles, but of being straightforward learning guides - in this case, to a user-friendly yet sophisticated business intelligence / performance management front-end development platform. Although the book does not intend to teach any BI back-end development, it provides just enough context so that readers without those skills will move forward without difficulty. On that note, the book also does a reasonable job of mapping PPS's not-completely-consistent terminology with that of its ideal back-end, SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services.

Part I -- Introduction: The authors begin by convincingly introducing Performance Management as a strategic business challenge and an emerging discipline. They describe how PerformancePoint Server (PPS) 2007 delivers on that challenge and then correctly emphasize that multi-dimensional (business intelligence) underlying data architecture is an optimum foundation upon which to fully leverage PPS and build a Performance Dashboard that satisfies users.

Part II -- Elements: Separate chapters are dedicated respectively to Data Sources, Indicators (visual icons), Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), Scorecards, Reports, and Dashboards. Each chapter effectively combines a series of clear, succinct explanations of concepts and best practices followed by thoughtful step-by-step practice. Chapter 5 on Data Sources is an illuminating start, introducing how easily data from multiple sources can be integrated, with subsequent chapters reinforce it. Chapter 7 on KPI's is strong, with careful attention to theory and configuration of KPI target metrics, leaf, non-leaf and objective-KPIs, and thresholds. It also offers a simple workaround to a known glitch with multiple targets per KPI. Chapter 8 on Scorecards demonstrates the ease of Scorecard creation from solid KPI's and illustrates the payoff from good KPI naming. Chapter 9 on Reports adequately introduces, among other items, Analytic Charts and Grids (think next-gen pivot tables and pivot charts), Trend Analysis Charts (handy data mining time-series analyses), and what looks like a revolution in performance process-visualization, Visio Strategy Maps. Although I would have enjoyed an intro to Excel Services in Office SharePoint Server 2007 as an alternative BI front-end, it is, admittedly, a separate product. For help with ProClarity, which is included in PPS licensing, you need to buy a ProClarity book. Chapter 10 on Dashboard elements themselves is also effective, and the following sections -- on pages, zones, filters, display condition links, filter links, time intelligence and simply time-period specification (STPS) language -- are notably effective because, as elsewhere, the authors inform the reader just enough, then moving adeptly through a step-by-step practice sections that, as elsewhere, drive home the knowledge. Although the book provides adequate references to where multidimensional expressions (MDX) will afford more sophisticated features (eg. custom KPI data-mapping, custom reports and grids, filter link formulae), it, of course, does not presume to try to build readers' MDX skills.

Part III - Implementation and Mgmt: Chapters 11 and 12, respectively on Deploying to SharePoint and Security, briefly cover just the basics. Importantly, as a welcome enhancement from "Business Scorecard Manager" (predecessor product), PPS Dashboards are deployed to SharePoint (or other portals) as already integrated solutions needing little additional configuration.

Bonus -- The bonus materials, available via web to registered readers, are all worth downloading. Bonus Chapter Two - Designing an Effective Performance Management Solution, should be required reading for most or all project stakeholders. Bonus Chapter Three - (KPI) Scoring, addresses, importantly, how child KPI's rollup to parent KPI's, especially in the context of the preferred threshold banding method, "Band by normalized value of Actual/Target".

Prepare your PC -- Perhaps the best way to deploy the entire platform to readers' PC's for learning and even light-development purposes is -- in light of the sheer amount of required software -- to download the following items from Microsoft.com: (1) Virtual PC 2007; and (2) BI-VPC 5.1, which includes PPS, MOSS, SQL Server 2005 Dev and much more. Lastly and importantly, I discourage readers' from attempting to use BI-VPC on a PC with under 2GB RAM. 2GB is slow but works. 4GB works well.

Nick Barclay and Adrian Downes have authored their second book in the Rational Guide series entitled The Rational Guide to Monitoring and Analyzing with Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007. Their first book was The Rational Guide to Microsoft Office Business Scorecard Manager 2005, which I've also read and found to be very useful.

The book begins with a description of what Performance Management is and the role it plays in business organizations. They also introduce PerformancePoint Monitoring's component architecture with easy-to-follow illustrations, discuss key terminology and cover the BI stack of Microsoft products that support and interact with PerformancePoint Server 2007. All of this is done in the first 45 pages.

The authors use the remaining 200 pages to walk you through installation and configuration (both stand-alone and distributed installs) as well as the primary elements: data sources, KPIs, indicators, scorecards, reports, and dashboards. Following that is a section on implementing and managing dashboards, and a final chapter which addresses security settings and management.

What I like best about this book is that Nick and Adrian respect the reader's time. There is no excess verbiage. Each word carries its own bags and pays its own way. Chapters average about 30 pages each and are filled with illustrations, tips, and step-by-step procedures to do everything from setting Threshold Boundaries on KPIs to writing MDX code for a Time Intelligence filter.

As one of the Microsoft technical writers who worked on PerformancePoint Monitoring since its inception, I'm happy to say that I've found Barclay and Downes book to be comprehensive without being overwhelming, with clear directions and a firm grasp of the products' capabilities.

When I first started trying to work with Business Scorecard Manager (BSM) I found a terrific little book (Rational Guide) by Nick Barclay and Adrian Downes which saved me a ton of time.

Happily the PerformancePoint Monitoring product is intrinsically better than BSM and hence a little easier to understand on its own terms, but none the less this new Rational Guide is a very valuable resource for anybody tasked with working with this product.

I don't know if I should credit the authors or their editor at Rational Press, but their books seem to always hit sweet spot of providing all of the important information you need without being burdened with a bunch of filler that obscures the gems (which I think is the case with many technical books).

Bottom line: If you need to work with this product get this book.

A very helpful guide for managers who have the task of doing Performance appraisals , with ready to use appraisal forms! Very helpful for the always busy Manager.

This book is great. If you are just starting out writing appraisals or just want something fresh and new, this is a great book to use. With this book it was a time saver for me because it addresses pretty much every area that I needed for my associate reviews. Best of all, it's user friendly. I highly recommend this book.

This is an excellent book, and contains both good advice and practical applications. Readers of this book gain access to online tools that they can begin to use immediately, and which will not only boost the efficiency of their performance reviews, but also their effectiveness.

This is a great tool for managers who are responsible for writing performance reviews for their staff. It provides an actionable outline for the performance review process (if your company doesn't already have one). Most importantly, it provides pre-written paragraphs and text to help you articulate how employees exceeded or didn't meet expectations. (Great for those who don't have much experience writing reviews or those who just need some fresh ways to express their thoughts.)

Finally an evaluation measurement system that works! I have used this approach as a foundation for creating, redesigning and managing two corporate universities in Fortune 100 companies. The RESULTS method worked where the traditional approaches didn't. The Kirkpatrick approach was too complex to implement and our senior management customers wouldn't buy into it.

The RESULTS model worked so well that in both situations, our HRD budgets increased even as the organizations were cutting costs. The RESULTS model provides a simple, easy to implement, business framework for rationally calculating return-on-investment decisions about training, organization development, and performance improvement projects. You may know that your work as a performance-improvement professional adds value, but not feel that you are getting the recognition you deserve. Use this approach to prove your contribution to your organization's bottom line.

Even if you think no one cares, your internal customers are making these decisions all the time when they approve, slash, or don't approve your budget and projects. Why not give your customers real numbers to work with rather than let them use their imagination? You will find that your credibility increase exponentially. Systematic Human Resource Development is a solid, cost-effective business investment.

My only critique is that there isn't more data showing how well the approach works.

Richard A. Swanson and Elwood F. Holton, III, based this book on valuable material, drawn from various organizations' positive reactions to their Results Assessment System. However, the book's writing actually obscures the value of their material and method. This would be just a subjective matter of style if the book were dull and boring. But that is not the case. The writing is disjointed and unclear, severely handicapping the reader's ability to discern much of what the authors are trying to convey. Nevertheless, we [...] recommend that human resources professionals all pick up this book, simply to extract the authors' system for measuring employee performance and learning. The system itself is - the creators should thank their lucky stars - a much more valuable resource than this documentation of its logistics and performance.

This book is the most useful resource I've encountered in the assessment arena for training and organization development efforts. The book outlines three areas of assessment: PERFORMANCE (system outputs and financial results), LEARNING (knowledge gained by participants & expertise that can be demonstrated by trainees), and PERCEPTION (reactions from both participants and stakeholders). The processes are described for each area using straightforward language, and sample templates show how deliverables could look for each type of assessment. Overall, the structure of the book is logically assembled with references to research supporting the main ideas. I especially found useful the discussion on performance drivers, measurement of outcomes, critical outcome technique, and the certification of core expertise. The book also contains usable information on drawing conclusions from assessment data, key questions to be answered when planning an assessment, and advice on conducting practical, credible assessments. Finally, the assessment framework described in the book makes sense from a business perspective and should help almost anyone be more effective as a practitioner. If you are planning or designing an initiative that involves changing how people do work, you'll likely find benefit from using the framework, tools, and techniques outlined in this book.

This book is a must for every Human Resource Development (HRD) professional! Swanson and Holton make the case for the need to measure performance results, not just stakeholder reactions, if HRD is to be seen as a legitimate business partner and contibutor to organizational performance. To this end, the authors have written a book for the everyday HRD practitioner, not the theorists. They present a comprehensive system for assessment of HRD interventions built around a logical five-step process. A full compliment of simple, yet powerful, tools is presented, which will enable any HRD practitioner to conduct reliable and meaningful assessments of performance results.

In the future, HRD must sit at the table, not only as a contributing business partner, but as an organizational leader in performance improvement as well. This book is a starting point for HRD leadership. I've used it - it works!