Diagnosing Performance and Reliability

This book lays out the real essence of effective and efficient diagnosis, which is the process of getting a causal explanation for an observed problem behavior. Without a causal explanation, actions taken to solve a problem are poke and hope, which will likely cost you a lot of money. There are a limited number of effective approaches, and these have been combined into an overall methodology. Well known for its results, the principles behind this framework, applied to every single problem we encounter, are less well understood. Armed with the framework described in this book, we can get to the truth in days compared to the months that people have frequently already squandered. In the end, it is a methodology for sorting out the important, those details that make all the difference, from the unimportant. In any endeavor, the one who can do the most, for the least effort, wins.