Measurement reading recommendations

How to Make The World Add Up

Numbers can make or refute an argument depending on its presentation. How can we tell the numbers to trust and those to ignore? How to Make the World Add Up is a guide on how to make sense of these numbers.

The book has ten rules for thinking differently about numbers, plus one golden rule. They are:

1. Search your feelings
2. Ponder your personal experience
3. Avoid premature enumeration
4. Step back and enjoy the view
5. Get the backstory
6. Ask who’s missing
7. Demand transparency when the computer says no
8. Don’t take statistical bedrock for granted
9. Remember misinformation can be beautiful too
10. Keep an open mind
11. The golden rule: Be curious

This book allows readers to exercise correct judgment on statistics and numbers. Using case studies, the author gives historical accounts of disinformation, obfuscation, and valuable data and analysis that improved the world.

The Art of Statistics

In The Art of Statistics, world-renowned statistician David Spiegelhalter explains how to get knowledge from raw data by focusing on the concepts and connections behind math.

The job of a statistician is to use and interpret data through a five-step process:

• Problem
• Plan
• Data
• Analysis
• Conclusion

The book is a non-technical introduction to the world of statistics. It guides readers on how to manage biases and interpret data presentation.

The Art of Statistics is an excellent entry-level book for anyone who wants to interpret statistical data better.

Accelerate

Accelerate presents a statistical case of why DevOps provides business value and competitive advantage. Accelerate is an excellent book for those wanting a convincing argument to present to senior management for adopting DevOps practices.

The authors use rigorous statistical methods to measure software delivery performance through four years of research. Readers can learn how to measure the performance of their teams and the business areas to invest in to improve performance.

Accelerate places a high priority on continuous improvement against four key metrics:

1. Lead time
2. Deployment Frequency
3. Mean Time to Restore (MTTR)
4. Deployment Failure Percentage

These four metrics reinforce each other. They create a virtuous cycle and predict business success as measured by profitability, market share, and productivity.

Accelerate highlights 24 practical capabilities, like automating deployments and supporting learning. These capabilities drive improvement against the four metrics to achieve business success.

Accelerate caters to both technical and managerial workers. The book provides extensive academic sections but also presents a statistically sound case for senior managers to understand the benefits of DevOps.

How to Measure Anything

You can measure anything if the goal is reducing uncertainty, rather than searching for a precise and accurate number.

In this book, Douglas Hubbard tackles the myth that there are some things you can’t measure. He delivers his argument alongside useful techniques that give you the knowledge to inform decision-making, like:

• The clarification chain
• The rule of five
• The urn of mystery rule

The book has deeper theoretical interludes but is mostly practical. There are also downloadable materials on the companion website.

Practical Monitoring

Monitoring is an essential part of fitting your system with observability. Observability is the ability to assess the internal health of the system with external metrics.

Practical Monitoring gives you an approach to designing and implementing a monitoring strategy. The book is vendor-neutral. Rather than teach you how to implement tools, the book covers principles and techniques that apply to any monitoring tool.

Topics include:

• Fix noisy alerts
• Using statistics to improve your monitoring
• Building a better on-call experience
• Tie business metrics to system metrics
• Common metrics to monitor
• Monitoring as a culture

Practical Monitoring is ideal for operations or site reliability engineers wanting proven methods to improve monitoring.