Summary

As you've seen during this chapter, profiling and benchmarking can be as limited or involved as you deem necessary. A complete undertaking of any of the initiatives within the performance management model will be involved and quite possibly complex initiatives. They are, however, one of those things that tend to be scrutinized by nontechnical managers who think conducting some form of fuzzy "profiling" is a waste of time.

As discussed in Chapters 1 and 2, building business cases for this type of initiative is about as important (and time consuming!) as it is to actually run the tests once you know what it is you're trying to achieve.

In essence, profiling is all about structure. Approach profiling as you would any other form of detailed testing, and plan your goals and approach thoroughly.