Over many years as an application designer, builder, tester and tuner, I accumulated myriad experiences with performance tuning. During that time, I discovered there are methodologies that work, and ones that do not work. In some situations I was welcomed; in others I received a cold reception and on occasion a hostile attitude. My intent in this three part series is to give you the benefit of what I’ve learned, often one excruciating lesson at a time, in order to help facilitate your rise to a professional computer applications performance tuner.

EGO ERGO

The scene: The moment you arrive, be prepared to be under evaluation and scrutiny. If that gives you trouble, this is not a good role for you. The person who recommended you is concerned that your failure will reflect on them. The person who is paying for it fears that they are wasting their money on you. The technical people are worried that you will find something obvious and make them look bad.

The first challenge of tuning a system that you did not create is to deal gently with the egos of the people who have failed to solve the problem. Even if they appear to invite you with open arms, it is important to be supportive and to maintain a humble confidence. You need their help, and even though they need yours too, nothing sets the engagement off on a worse path than cockiness. Stay cool!

Though failure may cause ugly consequences, there is no guarantee that success will elevate you to the white horse. Manage expectations by sharing some of your credentials while praising previous efforts. Let people know that you are not necessarily smarter than they are, but you follow proven methodologies, learned from years of experience, that consistently converge on a solution.

Invite the people who have worked on the problem already to become part of your team. Remind them that you are only a temporary resource, and they stand to benefit mutually from a successful resolution. This is also when you introduce the concept of gaining familiarity with the nature of the application, and ask for some time and patience while you make an initial assessment.

During the start-up of a project I am often bombarded by superfluous input like “it worked fine until they installed the new …” and “we tried that” claims. Gently push back by asserting that your approach works best when it is followed without interruption. You are on a time-frame, and unsolicited input, while well intended, is more of a distraction than a help. I generally tell managers that a tuning effort will take X amount of time if I get full access to systems and technical people, and 2X if they insist on helping. There have been several experiences where the factor was closer to pi.

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