The title of this book is a misnomer. The book is more than an appraisal guide, because it discusses almost all aspects of personnel administration, and it is more appropriate for human resources professionals than for information systems (IS) managers.

Nevertheless, IS managers could do worse than to read the nuts-and-bolts advice for conducting appraisal reviews of their staff, a duty that the authors correctly point out is part of every IS manager’s job and is dreaded both by the manager and by the person being reviewed. Human resources professionals should read the book from cover to cover.

Once the authors get into a subject, they proceed in a methodical and detailed manner. Everything is discussed for each position: programmer trainee, programmer, senior programmer, lead programmer, and so on, to such an extent that here we have a personnel manual and not just a book.

The authors appropriately dwell on the notoriously difficult problem of measuring IS staff performance. They go through all measurement alternatives and correctly conclude that none is fully satisfactory and that whatever measurement is decided upon will contain an element of subjectivity.

Throughout the book, “programmer” is used in a wider context than is customary. It is unfortunate that the European term “informatician,” meaning any IS professional, has so far not crossed the Atlantic.

The authors recommend regular status reporting as a tool for objective staff evaluation, and not only for project control. They include an interesting discussion about what goes through the evaluator’s mind during an evaluation interview, and the excellent recommendation that new hires receive frequent feedback briefings from management in order to lessen their difficulty in adapting to the new environment. It is odd that so obvious an idea is so seldom implemented.

Training is recommended as a major corrective measure for below-standard performance, together with an admonition that whoever conducts the training must not only know the subject but also be a good teacher. Only those who have never experienced a brilliant professor whose inability to lecture coherently wasted that brilliance would disagree.

The book contains a large number of sample appraisal forms.

I do have a few criticisms. If a personnel book can be mainframe-oriented, this one is: its recommended procedures are applicable to large IS installations but less so to medium-sized or smaller ones. In the smaller locations, appraisal remains subjective to a fault, but little can be done about it. Much of what this book recommends is difficult to apply to government and its rigid civil service procedures.

The authors make many references to management by objectives (MBO) and only passing references to matrix management, management by exception, and so on. Each of those, and other management theories, has its proponents who advocate it, often convincingly, as the only management theory, whereas some combination of several different theories usually proves optimal.

Finally, too little is said about the fact that many personnel decisions, especially about promotions, are made largely subjectively. Will I feel comfortable with this person around me? Will my peers feel comfortable with him/her at the social functions that accompany the new job? Will his/her spouse then get along with the other spouses? Little is said about the tendency of newly hired managers to bring their erstwhile colleagues with them.

I can only applaud the authors’ attempts to make the appraisal process, and all that results from it, more rational, however. They face a formidable task.