Behind the Scenes at Global-Roam

As I have noted elsewhere, our customers mostly like us, and what we do – the results we received from the survey we recently conducted were largely what we expected, in this sense.

When I find a bit more “spare” time, I’ll summarise some of the feedback here.

It’s a nice thing, but one we can’t take for granted.

From my perspective, we’ve already disappointed some of them on too many occasions.  I really want major improvement in the months ahead.

If we are really going to make “Customers First” our prime reason for being, we need to have an explicit measure of the extent to which we really do live by this motto.  When we have this measure, we will drive the company by this measure.

The development of this measure will be one of the core responsibilities that our new GM for Finding, Attracting and Delighting Customers will need to adopt, when we have recruited them.

Hence it was with interest that I stumbled upon this presentation titled “Ideas for Building Better Software Businesses” from Dharmesh Shah (of HubSpot) at the Business of Software conference in 2009:

Note that Dharmesh (as an additional service to his customers and fans) has prepared this page from his “OnStartups” blog to list some of the key points in the video.

I like this approach of “going the extra step” to make the message more understandable.

The following notes are specifically about his suggestions for the Customer Happiness Index (CHI):

Note that there is plenty of other good stuff in this video (you have to get to minute 47 before he mentions CHI), which I might have a chance to talk about at some other time.

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Technically speaking, our recruitment process has not even begun yet.

However, back in January I did mention that we hoped to have our GM M&S in place before the end of the year.

As a result of the interest generated when we kicked off the process of recruiting Derrick as our GM for DDD WCW, a number of people contacted me about this second position.  Some of these have kept in touch with me to keep tabs on our progress with a view to being considered when the process begins.

In case there are other interested people out there, here are some details of our status.

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When you see a job advertised with a title like

General Manager for Discerning, Developing and Delivering
What the Customer Wants

it is hard not to be curious.  In particular, I’d never had a job title that needed an acronym before - “GM 3D WCW” has a sort of geeky attractiveness about it, so I had to come and have a look.

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Frequent readers to this blog will have noted an organogram included in a post made back in January that identified the organisation structure and responsibilities that existed at the start of the year.

Since that time, our business has been evolving fairly rapidly – with a fair number of changes already completed (and a number still to go) in order to ensure that we really can deliver on our primary core value of “Customers First!”.

When I have a bit more time, I will post in more detail about some of the other developments that have been completed, or are still in progress – in this post I just wanted to ensure you were aware that last Monday (22nd March) we were delighted to have someone start with us as our new General Manager for Discerning, Developing and Delivering the Software our Customers Want.

The title is a bit of a mouthful, so he will shorten it in most cases – but he will certainly be specifically focused on delighting our growing customer base with the software we develop.

I will let him introduce himself in his own time, so stay tuned for more …

As you may be aware, we’re in the process of recruiting a General Manager for Discerning, Developing and Delivering the Software our Customers Want (Need).

Up until this weekend, we have been receiving proposals from a small number of candidates shortlisted from the large number of applications we received in the first 2 weeks after the position was opened on 24th January.

Given the importance of this position (for us, and for the candidates) this has entailed investing many hours of time in getting to know each other, and to ensure the candidates could gain a clear view of our company (where it is now, and where it is headed).  We want them to come in with their eyes fully opened – both to the opportunities and the challenges!

This week I will be reviewing these proposals to determine which one is the best fit for where our bus is headed.

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On January 24th 2010, we commenced (in earnest) the recruitment of our new General Manager for Discerning, Developing and Delivering What the Customer Wants (Needs) – more traditionally known as our GM Products.  We posted this advert on our blog then.

This led to Derrick Hill starting with us in this role on Monday 22nd March 2010.

The process was was intensive (lasting 8 weeks, not including considerable preparation time) but has resulted in a good fit to our needs.

As part of this process, we shortlisted a number of candidates, and provided them with a detailed briefing note to explain more about our starting point, and where we wanted them to help take the business.  As part of this briefing note, we also included the following core areas of responsibility. read more »

(Excuse the sad pun)

This week we went out for lunch with one of the guys in the office who was celebrating his birthday.  One of the small things we do in the company to celebrate the uniqueness of every individual (that’s a tick – thanks for suggesting it those years ago, Ricky).

Anyhow, as we were waiting for our meals to arrive in the local steakhouse and conversation drifted to some of the more detailed technical nature of software development, my mind began to wander (yeah, that’s a cross) and I pulled out the latest copy of INC, which had just arrived in the mail and started to browse (yeah, another cross)!

An article in the magazine caught my attention, as it provided a few pointers about the workplace culture that we are working to cultivate internally.

Given that I have been asked a couple of times this week by candidates for our Chief Software Engineer position about our culture (how it is now, and how we want to evolve it, over time), I thought it would be useful posting this (though I know it does not absolve me of the crosses above). read more »

In long-hand, you will be known as our:

General Manager for Discerning, Developing and Delivering what the Customer Wants

That’s a bit of a mouthful, so we have shortened it to a variety of titles used on this blog and elsewhere:
1)  GM Software
2)  Chief Software Engineer
3)  Director of the Product Development “Factory”

I would stress that all three aspects of the role are important.

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Post updated on 1st February 2010 to clarify the primary KPI.

This post is designed to provide an overview of what is required.  Note that (if you are successful in your application) I would expect that you would be proactive in working with me to flesh out the details of this position, in terms of specific deliverables and dates!

I have spoken with a number of people (online and offline) over the course of the past few months, since I determined that we needed to hire you.

It seems that no job title that could encapsulate this role is universally understood.  For this reason, you will be known as our:

General Manager for Discerning, Developing and Delivering what the Customer Wants

Bit of a mouthful, I know, but all three aspects of the role are important.

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This post is an incomplete work-in-progress (current issue posted on 4th January).  Check back later for updates! read more »