Software development is replete with risks. Will the finished software run quickly enough? Will the underlying hardware and network infrastructure be sufficient? Will the system scale? You can now get the answers you need, up-front, in time to act. This book introduces Software Performance Engineering (SPE), a proven step-by-step methodology for predicting the development challenges and performance of any object-oriented system -- and for managing development to achieve performance objectives. Performance experts Connie Smith and Lloyd Williams show how to build quantitative models of software before it is built, analyzing performance based on proposed architecture and design. Learn how to elicit performance objectives, gather relevant data, and evaluate performance throughout development and the rest of the software lifecycle. For software engineers, developers, architects, analysts, performance specialists, project managers, and other IT professionals who want to deliver higher-performance object-oriented software systems.

The goal of This book is to describe how you can adopt the results of solid performance research and turn it into practical, and cost-beneficial performance results for your organization. A review of this book by Dr. Brenda Sugrue (currently Director of Instructional Systems for Ford Motor Company-formerly a training manager for IBM and a professor at the University of Iowa) described it in the following way: This book is all you need to understand the process of performance improvement in organizations, and the "active ingredients" that impact performance. The book separates the snake oil and fads from solutions that are supported by research. It gives clear and research-based guidelines for diagnosing the causes of performance gaps and selecting solutions for knowledge, motivation, and organizational problems. Case studies illustrate the application of the model and rules. In addition, the book describes how to reliably and validly evaluate the effects of performance solutions and identifies flaws in some common approaches to evaluation. The book answers the kinds of "why" and "what if " questions that rarely get addressed. It includes a powerful model of motivated performance that can be used to address any motivational problems. (It provides the reader with) the arguments and references to support organizational development and training practices and also the arguments and evidence to abandon practices that have been shown to either be ineffective or to do more harm than good. If you want to understand why what you are doing works (or doesn't work), you need to read this book. It is unlike any other to date in the field of performance improvement and training. It takes the profession to a higher level and is a must for anyone working in the area of organizational development, performance improvement, or training.

If you want to gain the winning edge for your sales performance, it’s time to embrace the entire customer life cycle. Your job may be all about sales, but not your customers. Did you know that the average executive spends less than 5 percent of their time engaged in the buying of products and services? Therefore, sales professionals who focus solely on the moment of the sale have made a fatal miscalculation in understanding their customers. Beyond the Sales Process provides you with a proven methodology for driving success before, during, and after every sale. Featuring instructional case studies from companies such as Hilton Worldwide, Merck, and Siemens, this resource reveals 12 essential strategies for salespeople wanting to take their performance to a whole new level, including: Research your customer Build a vision with them for their own success Understand your customer’s drivers, objectives, and challenges Create and realize value together Leverage your results to forge lasting--and mutually beneficial—relationships If you want to successfully sell to your customers, you need to know your customers…beyond the sales process!

The lack of personal accountability is a problem that has resulted in an epidemic of blame, victim thinking, complaining, and procrastination. No organization—or individual—can successfully compete in the marketplace, achieve goals and objectives, provide outstanding service, engage in exceptional teamwork, or develop people without personal accountability. John G. Miller believes that the troubles that plague organizations cannot be solved by pointing fingers and blaming others. Rather, the real solutions are found when each of us recognizes the power of personal accountability. In QBQ! The Question Behind the Question®, Miller explains how negative, ill-focused questions like “Why do we have to go through all this change?” and “Who dropped the ball?” represent a lack of personal accountability. Conversely, when we ask better questions—QBQs—such as “What can I do to contribute?” or “How can I help solve the problem?” our lives and our organizations are transformed. THE QBQ! PROMISE This remarkable and timely book provides a practical method for putting personal accountability into daily actions, with astonishing results: problems are solved, internal barriers come down, service improves, teams thrive, and people adapt to change more quickly. QBQ! is an invaluable resource for anyone seeking to learn, grow, and change. Using this tool, each of us can add tremendous worth to our organizations and to our lives by eliminating blame, victim-thinking, and procrastination. QBQ! was written more than a decade ago and has helped countless readers practice personal accountability at work and at home. This version features a new foreword, revisions and new material throughout, and a section of FAQs that the author has received over the years.

The Pocket Mentor series offers immediate solutions to the challenges managers face on the job every day. Each book in the series is packed with handy tools, self-tests, and real-life examples to help you identify strengths and weaknesses and hone critical skills. Whether you're at your desk, in a meeting, or on the road, these portable guides enable you to tackle the daily demands of your work with greater speed, savvy, and effectiveness. One of your most sensitive duties as a manager is conducting performance appraisals. How do you objectively evaluate another person's performance? What guidelines are there for talking to your direct reports about both their strengths and their weaknesses? How can you address a weakness to help an employee develop into a stronger member of your team? This book teaches you how to prepare for, conduct, and follow up on performance evaluations in ways that link employee performance to your company's and group's goals. You'll learn how to: - Document employee development right from the start - Set the appropriate tone in a performance review - Address a performance problem - Follow up on next steps with your employee

The quality of enterprise software applications plays a crucial role for the satisfaction of the users and the economic success of the enterprises. Software applications with unsatisfying performance and scalability are perceived by its users as low in quality, as less interesting and less attractive, and cause frustration when preventing the users from attaining their goals. This book proposes an approach for a recommendation system that enables developers who are novices in software perform.