SQL Server Performance Tuning Practical Workshop – Discovery Phase – Online Training

July 2, 2019

Performance tuning is not as difficult as it once used to be but the challenge is the methodology of the performance tuning has changed quite a lot but many of the traditional training has so many limitations that I had went on my own journey to find the truth. In this blog post, we will discuss Discovery Phase which I spent before I built successful SQL Server Performance Tuning Practical Workshop.

Discovery Phase

First I went for an extremely expensive route of the in-person training where I had fewer learnings and more money & time wasting experience. My next stop was online live training. Here I had an interesting discovery journey.

Attend Live Online Performance Tuning Classes

What I have got from in-person training experience was more of disappointment and less of learning. When I expressed to my fellow attendees, they also agree with me most of the time. However, many said they see in-person training as an expensive vacation sponsored by their organizations. However, this entire experience was relatively reversed when I observed Live Online Performance Tuning Classes.

The biggest positive side of the live online classes was no travel and comfort of the home. However, there was a big negative part as well, the learning experience deteriorated as there was no peer learning or presence. The learning becomes like monotonous many times and it was important to find a solution for this degrading experience. Fortunately, I consider myself very lucky that I have found a solution to this problem.

My Experience Online Live Classes

Opportunity to Skip Learning
No Hotel, Travel and Food bills
Hard to Focus on Screen
Multiple Days Content (the problem continues)
- A long introduction to the topic
- For completeness too much basic content
- The long day leading to no after study
- Content for older versions of SQL Server
Monotonous Experience
No Recordings so No Follow-Up Self-Learnings
No Networking Events
Missing Peer Learning Opportunities

How Students Prefer to Learn

During the training, I connected with lots of fellow students/attendees and continuously gathered their feedback about their preference and their goals for the classes. After talking to many different people of different capabilities and focus, here are my learnings from the attendees.

Attendees would really prefer following –

Demos based on Recent SQL Server Version
Sharper Learning – Direct to the Point
Fewer Slides and More Demos
Learning from Peers
Repeatable Learning – Recording
More Interaction

Final Takeaway

At this point of time, I had now clear idea about what works and what does not work in terms of training. I made up my mind that I will make sure to incorporate the above methodology in my SQL Server Performance Tuning Workshops. However, I had several questions in my mind and lots of challenges. I look for help towards Brent Ozar who has done many successful online trainings and he gave me valuable guidance to overcome the final challenges of overcoming the interactivity between audience.

100% Interactive & 100 Demo-Oriented Online Training

After about 10 months of the hard work of spending in the discovery phase, I was able to build a class in such a way even though it is online class, it gives 100% interactivity to the attendees. My goal was that attendees who may be shy in person and never speak a single word in the in-person session feel comfortable enough to ask any question to me as well as rest of the fellow online classmate. The way I wanted to build an eco-system was such that everybody collaborates with each other to learn the best possible performance tuning tricks from me.

I am confident that I was able to include 100% demos and 100% interactivity in my training. If you have attended my training before, I am confident that you are familiar with my techniques.

Call to Action – Free Performance Tuning Consultation

If you sign up for the SQL Server Performance Tuning Practical Workshop before July 15, 2019, you will available the following benefits in the first 30 days of sign up.