PASS Summit Evaluations

The big day has arrived and all the speakers are poring over their PASS Summit 2009 evaluations, me included. These things are always a mixed bag. On the one hand you get nice positive reinforcement. On the other, you wonder how you may have fallen short to not get even higher marks. I’d say I take them as guides and move on, but I don’t. I really sweat them and worry about lower marks and ways I could improve… makes me a bit crazy. Be that as it may, here are the evals from my two sessions.

Best Practices for Working With Execution Plans (AD-419-S), 59 evaluations

Usefulness of Session
Poor:0
Average:2
Good:19
Excellent:38

Speaker’s Presentation Skills
Poor:0
Average:2
Good:18
Excellent:39

Speakers’s Knowledge
Poor:0
Average:1
Good:12
Excellent:45

Accuracy of Session Description, etc.
Poor:0
Average:3
Good:10
Excellent:45

Amount of Time for Session
Poor: 2
Average: 7
Good: 22
Excellent: 28

Quality of Materials
Poor: 0
Average: 8
Good: 14
Excellent: 36

I didn’t get any comments about this session. Overall, I’m pretty happy with the rating. I think I need to improve the quality of my slides somewhat and it shows. I’m very happy that my knowledge level was rated high. I’m assuming the Poor ratings on time for the session are because people wanted more (well, that’s my reason for putting down Poor on time for a session).

DMV’s as a Shortcut to Procedure Tuning (AD-393)  88 evaluations

Usefulness of Session
Poor:0
Average:3
Good:25
Excellent:60

Speaker’s Presentation Skills
Poor:0
Average:5
Good:19
Excellent:64

Speakers’s Knowledge
Poor:0
Average:1
Good:23
Excellent:64

Accuracy of Session Description, etc.
Poor:0
Average:3
Good:22
Excellent:63

Amount of Time for Session
Poor: 1
Average:5
Good: 36
Excellent: 46

Quality of Materials
Poor: 0
Average: 7
Good: 29
Excellent: 52

Comments:

AWESOME!! [that’s as it was written, promise]

Wish we had some explanation of stats

It would be nice if PASS let the presenters put up their sample code online before the session. Many of us take laptops. It’s easier for me to take notes around the code itself.

If Tony Robbins were a DBA he might be as enthusiastic and energetic as Grant Fritchey! This guy had his own cheering section in the audience!

Again, I’m pretty happy with this session, especially because I didn’t get to rehearse it at all before the conference. I thought I was a little bit short on material, but it seems to have worked out OK. I’m assuming the Tony Robbins thing is a compliment since I don’t know who he is. I could have put my sample code up before the session, but didn’t. That’s one on me, not on the PASS organization. As far as the statistics goes, I didn’t spend tons of time talking about the things we were measuring as I did ways to measure them. An area for improvement.

From all this I have a few ideas for places to improve. I wish more people put down comments and that they were more constructively critical. I truly appreciate the nice things, but to improve I need the critical stuff.

Hopefully I can get invited back next year.