Performance Analysis
This article covers meaning, importance & process of Performance Analysis from statistical perspective.
What is Performance Analysis?
Performance Analysis is the process of studying or evaluating the performance of a particular scenario in comparison of the objective which was to be achieved. Performance analysis helps to review, analyze & measure the performance based on certain parameters. It helps to identify current performances and builds a path for areas of improvement.
Importance of Performance Analysis in Business
There are various ways in which performance analysis can help businesses:
1. Performance analysis can be done in finance on the basis of ROI, profits etc.
2. In HR, performance analysis, can help to review an employees contribution towards a project or assignment, which he or she was allotted.
3. In marketing, performance of campaigns based on investments in advertising and the corresponding sales can help a business grow.
Performance Analysis Process
The performance analysis step consists of 3 basic steps:
Data Collection
It is a process by which data related to performance of a program is collected. They are generally collected in a file, it may be presented to a real user in a real time. The basic data collection techniques are:
a. Profiles: It records the time spent in different parts of the program. This process in very important for highlighting performance problems. They are gathered automatically.
b. Counters: It records frequencies or cumulative number of events. It may require programmer intervention.
c. Event: It records each occurrence of various specified events. It thus produces a large number of data. It can be produced automatically or with programmer intervention.
Data Transformation
It is applied often to reduce the volume of data. For example, a profile recording the minutes spent in each sub routine job on each processor might be transformed to determine minutes spent in each subroutine on each processor and the standard deviation from this mean.
Data Visualization
Although data reduction techniques can recue the volume of data, it is often necessary to explore raw data. This process can benefit much more from the use of data visualization techniques.
Performance Analysis Criteria
When a particular tool is selected for a particular task, the following issues are considered:
a. Accuracy: Performance data that we get using the sampling technique are less accurate than data we get using counters or timers.
b. Simplicity: The best tools are that collect data automatically without much programmer intervention.
c. Flexibility: A flexible tool can be extended to collect additional information or to provide multiple views of the same data.
d. Intrusiveness: We need to take into account the overheads when analyzing data.
e. Abstraction: A good performance tool allows that data to be judged at a level of abstraction which is suitable for the programming model of parallel programs.
Advantages of Performance Analysis
Some advantages of evaluating the performance and analyzing are:
1. There is an opportunity to do better and grow based on analysis.
2. Analyzing performances can help set realistic goals & objectives for an task or activity.
3. Performance analysis can help identify bottle-necks in processes and help improve them.
4. It helps to identify the strengths & weaknesses of a particular person or team being evaluated.
5. It opens up a feedback loop which becomes critical for constant improvement.
Hence, this concludes the definition of Performance Analysis along with its overview.
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