Newsletters- Summer 2004

Building an Unshakable Relationship

by John Stout

 

I had lunch with the CEO of a major software vendor this past week. His company produces one of the most recognizable and widely used software products in the world.

 

The thing that spurred my interest in our meeting was a recent interview with him that I had read. During the interview he discussed an incident in which his company had come under tremendous pressure in a foreign market from a repressive government. He said one of the things that saved his company’s presence in that market—above and beyond the superb quality and popularity of their products—was that he had an "unshakeable" relationship with a large and very powerful partner company that was deeply entrenched in the same market. And that company refused to knuckle under to the governmental pressure.

 

This got me looking at what it takes to build an unshakeable relationship. While Stout Systems has several such strong relationships, I got to thinking newly about how such relationships are developed and analyzing what we have done to build them. At a later lunch, I asked my CEO friend just what he did and his answer was so simple and clear that I wished I would have articulated it as well in my own mind.

 

What he told me was this: prior to their partnership, the larger company had contacted him for help with a technical problem. They wanted to port his product to their system. So he sent a team to their headquarters with instructions to help the people in the larger company in whatever way they needed it. I listened amazed as he told me not only had they attacked and solved the technical issues but they also did their best to handle any type of problem the partner’s representatives could come up with: be it technical, sales, or even personal such as helping fix the rep’s marital difficulties!

 

The principle the CEO espoused was to exchange with his customer in abundance. In other words, give back much more than what was expected.

 

Let’s look at a typical business relationship. It operates on the principle of fair or equal exchange: someone provides goods or service and receives in exchange something, usually money, of equal value.

 

Of course, a poor or criminal service provider doesn’t operate that way. Such a provider gives low quality service—and expects to be well paid. As an aside, this is one reason that many people object so strongly to governments. It is unusual to receive high quality service from a government organization, and yet governments often make unreasonable demands for exchange that include high taxes and compliance with incomprehensible bureaucratic regulations.

 

So a truly valuable supplier is one that exchanges in abundance and gives much more than it receives from its customers, often in unexpected ways.

 

I looked over what he said and indeed that is exactly what we had done with every customer with whom we had an unshakeable relationship. We had helped, often on a very personal level, the individuals with whom we had contact. Understand that I am not simply talking about taking the client out to lunch or inviting them to a golf outing, although those things are nice. I am talking about finding solutions, above and beyond our standard services, that give repeating long term value. One of our customers had an outdated boilerplate contract that gave insufficient protection in the current business environment and asked for our help. So we provided sample contracts, saving our customer time and legal research fees. In another relationship, there were communication difficulties between the customer’s engineering and accounts departments. We agreed to take responsibility for resolving the problem and did so—greatly improving the communication in the process. In several cases we made referrals to other service providers that have proven to have long term value to our customers.

 

I hope that insight proves of value to anyone wanting to build long-term business relationships. That goes for those seeking full-time jobs as well.

 

To find out more about my CEO friend’s company, visit the company Web site at www.executive.com.

 

The CEO’s advice about exchange in abundance comes from the management technology developed by American writer and philosopher L. Ron Hubbard.

 

John W. Stout is the founder and president of Stout Systems. He has twenty-four years experience in the software development industry consulting for many companies on a wide variety of projects. He is also sought after as a technology speaker, presenting sessions at developer conferences and user groups.  Email .

 

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Testing the State of Online Testing

by Peg Bogema

 

Before Stout Systems presents a candidate for a permanent or contract position, we conduct a technical interview with the candidate to validate his or her skills.

 

Our approach is straightforward: we have a battery of technical screenings, each consisting of about ten questions on a topic. We select the screenings most appropriate to the skills required by the position the candidate has applied for. Then we call up the candidate and ask the questions.

 

The interviewer listens for correctness and completeness in answering and evaluates the examples the candidate uses to illustrate points. The interviewer notes whether or not the candidate is honest about what he or she knows and doesn’t know; or if the candidate guesses or bluffs or otherwise covers up a lack of knowledge. The interviewer pays attention to the pauses: is the information at the candidate’s fingertips or does it take a while to dredge it up? Worst of all, does it appear that the candidate is looking up the information in a book or on the Web? It has happened!

 

Out of these technical screenings we get a pretty good sense of a candidate’s experience and skill level. It is time consuming and labor-intensive. But we think it’s worth it. That doesn’t stop us from looking for alternatives, though. And I recently spent some time investigating the state of on-line testing to see if we could migrate from interviews to standardized tests. I looked at many companies. A representative sampling is described below.

 

Company 1

 

Company 1 specializes in technical testing. The company suggests using its tests to screen incoming applicants and to evaluate the skills of one’s current workforce. The tests questions are all multiple-choice with one correct answer.

 

I took the sample test, a "fundamentals of programming" test. I scored 80%, missing only the advanced question. Not bad for someone who has never written a single line of code!

 

This test laid bare the basic flaw in single answer multiple-choice testing. Given four answers to a question, one has a 25% chance of picking correctly.

 

Single answer multiple-choice testing is flawed for evaluating technical skills. It may, in fact, cover up a lack of technical skills—so it is pretty much worthless.

 

Company 2

 

Company 2 uses a different form of multiple-choice testing than Company 1—a form that was a significant improvement. This is multiple-choice testing in which anywhere from one to three answers might be correct.

 

For example, the questions might lead off with an information paragraph. Two cars are traveling down a two-lane highway, one behind the other. The car in the lead is traveling 50 MPH in a 60 MPH zone. The car behind wants to pass the car in the lead.

 

Given this information, the person taking the test is asked to indicate which of the following answers are correct:

 

(a) The driver behind may not pass unless he or she is in a passing zone. (b) The driver behind may not pass unless he or she can tell there is no on-coming traffic. (c) The driver behind may not exceed 60 MPH when passing. (d) When the car in front observes that it is being passed, its driver should put on the hazard lights until the passing car has safely overtaken.

 

This type of test is scored by rewarding correct answers and penalizing incorrect answers. So guessing is a bit riskier.

 

Select correct answers and you get a point for each. Select incorrect answers and you lose a point for each.

 

This form of test is more effective than a single-answer multiple-choice test. It doesn’t fully close the door on successful guessing but it is much more rich and complex in options. Given thoughtful test questions, the test format can be useful.

 

Taking the sample test, I managed to score at a junior developer’s level. I might not have done so well over a span of twenty, thirty or more questions, though. So the guess and bluff factor is reduced but not eliminated.

 

Company 3

 

Company 3 is a certification company. They do not offer a sample test. So I asked one of our developers to pick a subject, take a test and see how he fared. His results and his impressions of the test type’s merits?

 

"You are on the honor system as regards the test—it says so right on the site. The test is open-book, but timed; in theory, if I had to look up answers I would move through the test too slowly to achieve a good score. But there is nothing to prevent me from having a helper standing by—or taking the test for me! Similarly, on questions that ask what the compiled output of a code sample would be, there is nothing to stop me from copying the code and pasting it into a compiler!

 

"All multiple-choice questions. Not terribly easy to guess. But absent were important subjects such as best practices, code reuse, defensive programming and other topics that I always ask about when I interview prospective developers.

 

"In a controlled interview the test would provide insight. But not much!"

 

Summary: Any test type that offers the test taker a selection of answers can be fooled. Question and answer testing exposes significantly more of the test taker’s strengths and weaknesses; but the individual with good book-learning can appear to be significantly more knowledgeable than he actually is. Nothing beats having a candidate white board out how he or she would solve a coding problem or actually sitting down to develop code!

 

Peg Bogema is Executive Project Manager at Stout Systems. Email . 

 

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