Customer Reviews

Performance Support Engineering Part One : Key Concepts

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you're involved in an e-learning or knowledge management initiative you would probably gain something from reading this special report first to make sure you're on the right track. It's easy to get sidetracked by vendors touting specific tools and systems and by the marketing hype surrounding e-learning with the result that you can miss the big picture. This report helps you take a step back and take a wider viewpoint. The sections on the five level performance support maturity model and on the performance support continuum in the report are especially useful when you're working out your strategy.

For software developers, designing software that directly supports work processing and learning does not happen by chance. It requires a deliberate process with a defined set of activities and deliverables that build upon each other to achieve the desired result. The method and activities to achieve performance-centered design are not difficult: rather they are different from traditional approaches. These requirements are summarized in this special report and fully detailed in "The Performance Support Engineering Reference Handbook" by the same author which is available separately from z-Shops. The handbook clearly describes each phase in the methodology and how to integrate it into an e-learning or knowledge management strategy or into a software development life cycle. They should serve as a recipe for success and none of the ingredients should be omitted. The significance of the handbook is that it not only articulates a proven methodology to follow, but does such in the context of new goals of integrating support for work processing with knowledge, data, tools, and communications. Before it was written, all development methods were toward achieving successful parts, not the required whole.

The reference handbook is different from the other text books on performance support, performance-centered design and knowledge management on the market in that it has been structured as a starting point for someone who wants to develop more structured internal documention of their design and development methodology. To this end it includes process charts, document flows, deliverables, how to's and examples in a three-ring reference binder that can be used to help manage and structure projects. Other texts on the market are much less structured and it is much more difficult to extract this process information. To build a manual like this yourself would probably take a year of effort. Barry Raybould is really one of the only people who could have written this book due to his experience, perspective, and expertise. We should all be happy that he did.

I recommend you read the special report "Performance Support Engineering Part One : Key Concepts" first and if you find the concepts useful then get the full handbook. (If you're already familiar with the concepts, just buy the handbook which includes the key concepts report.)