Intervention Resource Guide : 50 Performance Improvement Tools

Rating:
Summary: A comprehensive resource guide that is easy to use.
Review: A collegue once remarked that "if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail". As an experienced practitioner, I regularly come across problems that are a little different from what I've seen before and I am always on the lookout for good tools. This book provides brief reviews of a wide variety of tools. It doesn't teach how to use the tools, but it does tell me enough so that I can decide whether I want to REALLY learn about a specific tool.

I put this book on the same shelf as my ASTD Reference Guides. I don't read it (or them) like a book to teach me about Expert Systems. I read it to assess whether an Expert System might be a tool I could use with a current need with a specific client. If the answer is yes, then I'll go find a good book or program on Expert Systems. Since we all seems to have different language for similar tools, this book is very helpful.

My critique of the book is in the selection of tools. Some tools are very specific, while some tools (e.g., training) are very broad. A more consistent scope of tools would strengthen the book. Still, as a resource for identifying and initially assessing the usefulness of intervention tools, it is very good.

Rating:
Summary: The Intervention Resource Guide is a useful tool.
Review: As a manager of a large organization, I am constantly faced with situations where I want to implement new interventions to meet my ever-changing business needs. This is an excellent resource for helping me to identify the possible interventions needed and trigger my thinking about options to achieve my objectives. In the past I have had to use an HR professional or do a lot of digging to find what I can now find in one convenient book. In addition it gives me case studies that help me to see if the application will meet my need. I appreciate this one stop resource with linkages to other references.

Rating:
Summary: This resource guide is a worthwhile investment.
Review: As a performance technologist, it is easy to get overwhelmed by the complexity of problems we are asked to solve and the tools available to help solve them. I really appreciate the user-friendly way The Intervention Resource Guide is organized and the powerful simplicity and clarity of its writings. Specifically, I found the "back to the basics" information in the introductory chapters on selecting and implementing interventions helped me re-focus on the important fundamentals of our work. The short, yet content dense section on "How to Build Your Own Repertoire of Interventions" is filled with concrete, practical suggestions to deepen expertise, which challenged me to re-consider the degree to which I personally have contributed to the field of human performance technology. I really liked how the tools were dual-classified in the Matrix of Interventions; both factors, "the kind of performance change" and "level of audience," are a highly effective and useful way of organizing the interventions. The consistent presentation of information on each tool makes it easy to zero in on the content.

My suggestions to the editors for their next edition is threefold: explicitly define the criteria for including a tool, use this criteria to choose tools that are consistent with each other in scope, and include in an introductory chapter a conceptual model and practical information on the relationship of related professional fields to Human Performance Technology and the tools.

This book is a worthwhile investment. I plan to keep it within easy reach in my office.

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Summary: Great suggestions and case studies for my students!
Review: As a professor at the State University of New York--Plattsburgh, I'm always looking for new case studies and ideas to share with my undergraduate students. The book clearly demonstrates what professionals in various fields are doing to improve structures within different contexts. Having worked with various non-profit organizations, this resource guide is useful both as a practioner and observer of organizational communication. Each of the proposed interventions clearly define, describe and apply techniques that could definitely improve communication within the workplace. I'm especially fond of the resources and references included at the end of each intervention.

Rating:
Summary: The most effective way to organize consultants knowledge
Review: At last! I've really needed this! I get so overwhelmed with all the new interventions that abound - and I don't have time to go to ALL the conference presentations, or read ALL the articles in professional journals, so say nothing about reading all the books out there. This book gives me good, clear overviews that have shed light into the shadows.

As a validity check, I looked at interventions I know. Yep, what was covered was right on! So I'll trust that those I don't know are also well presented.

One overview I browsed was a bit, hmmm, well, pedantic. One sentence I read 4 times but was none the wiser. Fortunately I browsed again and found other overviews that were clear and easy to understand. So my advice is that, if you hit a "heavy" one, don't stop there!

Rating:
Summary: The most effective way to organize consultants knowledge
Review: For a human performance methodologist this book represent the state of the art of the knowledge.For the first time you can have the whole map of knowlege in the world of intervention, organized in a systematic and logic way. I find this book wonderful to train and support the next generation of consultants, both in the university and at work. The book helps you to convince the client not to "jump" to any fashional intervention, and to have corelation between the "medicine" and the dyagnostic phase. And, above all, the book talks in an international language, which fits the time of globalization. Here, overseas, the book is written in a common terminology, that fits our culture. Any human performance technologist should have this book on his desk.

Rating:
Summary: An elegant solution for the front line manager
Review: I am an operations officer for a large military technical maintenance organization.

If you are reading this review you are probably a leader and manager with some familiarity of organizational and human performance. You may also be looking for ways to increase your value to your team. If so, this book should be a tremendous help you.

The Intervention Resource Guide (IRG) is a work that should sit not on your bookshelf, but on your desk top as a ready reference. I will not attempt to evaluate each intervention, as valuable as they are (of the ones I have used), but choose to focus on the heart of the book, "Part One, Intervention Selection and Implementation" which includes the "Matrix of Interventions".

The editors have efficiently and credibly provided the leader-manager with the ability to make use of the proper intervention given the goal of: "Establishing, Improving, Maintaining or Extinguishing" performance in the "Business unit, Process, Work group, or Individual". All 50 interventions are evaluated for relevency against the above eight factors. By using their intervention selection model, any leader and manager should be able to select a proven intervention leading to a high probability of performance improvement. Conversely the avoidance of selecting the wrong intervention is just as valuable, and through use of the matrix, the leader should be able to avoid costly damage to the organization she serves.

The Intervention Resource Guide provides an elegant solution to the workplace manager that wants to make the best use of systematic performance improvement tools.