Remember your last road trip through the countryside? As you drove down that country road, chances are good that you spotted a trust box or two sitting alongside the road.
A trust box is one of those unmanned "for sale" stands you'll see sitting off the road, near a farmhouse. They'll typically consist of a weathered sawhorse or table, a basket of farm-fresh tomatoes or a few cherry pies, a rusty coffee can, and a big, hand-written sign spelling out the terms: "Tomatoes: 50 cents each or 3 for a $1. Put money in can. God bless!"
Image by keeeks
If you buy or sell contract software development services, what can you learn from a trust box? Let's walk through how a trust box works and see what it provides.
In the best case scenario, a customer picks a tomato from the basket and puts money into the can. Everyone is happy. The customer gets a fresh tomato at a low price. The farmer gets to spend more time farming. The cost of the relationship between the farmer and the customer is at its lowest possible level.
Now, what happens when the customer picks a tomato but doesn't put money into the can? If it only happens occasionally, the farmer can simply factor that slippage into his prices and carry on.
However, the trust is diminished and the cost of the relationship increases.
What if we take it to an extreme and imagine that lots of customers regularly don't pay for the tomatoes they take? At the end of each day the farmer has a good chance of having very little or even no money. Now uncertainty exists. The farmer can no longer trust his customers to meet their commitments (to pay for the tomatoes).
Of course the farmer wants to continue selling tomatoes--this is his livelihood. So, he locks down his processes. Yep, he pulls up a lawn chair and mans his tomato stand, dog gone it. He still sells his tomatoes but what are the repercussions? The customer pays more. The farmer farms less.
The trust is gone. The cost of the relationship goes even higher.
So, what can we learn from a trust box? Trust is a lubricant. The more trust, the less friction. The less friction, the more everyone benefits.
In software development, devices such as contracts, upfront deposits, specifications, change orders, CMM Level 5 certifications, and multiple sign-offs are all used to lock down the process and control uncertainty. But, each of these increase the friction in the relationship. It gets pushed further away from being a simple trust box.
Build trust early and work hard to keep it strong. Its value is quantifiable.
