My ColdFusion book and the learnings!

Posted in Book, Technology

Late last year, Ben Forta asked me about an opportunity to  tech review ColdFusion 10 book. This was not a difficult task as I had some experience being a tech reviewer of 3rd edition of Enterprise JavaBeans by O’Reilly, one of the most popular book at its time. However, I soon got completely involved with the project as a co-author. I want to share my experience that can help other folks in a similar pursuit with their first book.

ColdFusion Book

What I found most effective is to write down high level sections of the chapters in a top-down approach. This allowed me to ensure that I will be covering the right amount of technical information and a logical flow is already established. The remaining work, then is mostly about filling those sections and fine tuning the sub sections.

With this high level – breakdown approach I was able to achieve a good momentum in finishing the chapters. And this is the second thing that I found effective – riding on a momentum and not getting stuck up with something like an example or a particular section. Since I was always working with a top-down approach, I was able to park sections that were slowing me down. Finishing parking lot items at a later time or on a new day when you are fresh, was much easier and faster.

So, if you are a ColdFusion programmer and have not already bought this book, I strongly recommend the book. It is great addition to ColdFusion 9 WACK series and a relatively thin book focusing on finding what’s new and changed in ColdFusion 10 at a single place. Access additional details on book are here.

Go grab the book from here.

 

Law of Hiring

Posted in Hiring, People & Culture

The law of hiring states:

“Hiring an individual whose potential to perform is below the current team’s average brings down the team’s average performance”.

Conversely, “Hiring an individual who can perform better than the current team’s average increases the team’s average performance”

Why the law is important? Because the law of hiring determines your team performance. A sample calculation based on this law illustrates this point.

hiring-infograph

This means that the hiring exercise should focus on assessing a candidates potential to perform. Higher the delta, higher the influence on the team’s average. There will be times when your assessment will go wrong but at least being aware of this law allow you to take corrective measures during your next hiring gig. This awareness also help you to provide any training and mentoring facilities to the new hire.

What constitutes performance and how to assess it is not an easy task. However, it is something that you must prepare yourself, in advance, if you are the hiring manager.

The team’s overall performance depends on you. Are you listening? How have you applied this law?