Finishing the Interview

March 2006

In the last two newsletters, we covered the first six steps of the interview process:

1. Break the ice
2. Brief the interviewee
3. Obtain background info from the auditee
4. Ask the interviewee if they have any questions
5. Questioning
6. Summarize and paraphrase

Now let’s talk about how to close and document the interview—the final two steps:

Step 6. Close

After you have asked your questions and summarized the results verbally—basically parroted the main points of the interview back to the interviewee—you are ready to leave. But don’t just stand up and walk out the door. A little ritual is necessary here to maintain happy client relations.

Before you leave, you need to:

• Explain what happens next
• Leave the door open for follow-up
• Ask if they have any questions
• Leave your business card
• Say “Thank you”

Explain what happens next:
The client always wants to know what you are going to do with the results of the interview. Hopefully, you have already told them at the beginning of the interview, but it is never a bad idea to repeat it.

Tell them that you are going to type up the interview and then ask them to confirm that you got your facts straight. You will email them the results or give them a hard copy and would appreciate their comments within two or three days.

Some folks are uncomfortable with sharing their working papers with the client. While I understand the hesitation, I also think that you are passing up a wonderful opportunity to strengthen the evidence (because when they sign off on it, it is more likely to be true) and gain clarity. In prior newsletters we have talked about listening skills and how to strengthen them, but let’s be honest here—our minds do wander and we do misinterpret what people say.
                  
When you do decide to share your interview summary with the client, be sure to take out any personal observations or opinions. You might have opinions in the working papers, but don’t share those with the client. Some auditors are in the habit of adding things to the interview that aren’t necessarily said by the client—but are demonstrated—such as, “Bart’s office was chaotic and filled with loose papers. His phone never stopped ringing. He looked like he hadn’t showered in days.” Hey, I know that guy!

Leave the door open for follow-up:
I have said this before, but it deserves repeating. Don’t expect to be a super-genius who is able to ask all the pertinent questions in the moment. When you get back to your desk to write this interview up, a question or two will pop up.

Tell the client that this always happens and politely ask if you can call or email them with your questions later. That way, they aren’t surprised when you call back or think that you haven’t been listening.

Ask if they have any questions:
You are almost done! Before you leave, make sure the air is clear that the client isn’t left hanging on anything. Say, “What questions do you have?” This assumes they have a question.

Leave your business card:
What, no business card? Your company is too cheap to make them? Go to Kinko’s and pay $20 and get some simple business cards made with your contact information. This is professional and gives the client comfort that they can contact you later easily.

If they don’t offer their card, ask for one. This is a good place to get all the data you need about the interviewee, such as their job title, department, spelling of their name, etc.

Say “Thank You!”
Your mother was right. A thank you goes a long way!

Now—RUSH BACK TO YOUR DESK IMMEDIATELY AND WRITE EVERYTHING DOWN. DON’T TAKE A BATHROOM BREAK—OR GET A COFFEE. SIT DOWN RIGHT AWAY AND TYPE OUT YOUR RESULTS.

Every second between you and the interview is another 10% of the interview you lose. I don’t have scientific back-up on that figure, but I think you know what I mean! 30 minutes later, you can’t remember a third if what was said. Jot it down right now!

And just go freeform with your typing. Don’t worry about formatting it or grammatical correctness. Just write it ALL down. You can go back and edit it after your coffee break.

The initial write up should take 15 minutes.

7. Documenting the interview

In my experience, I have seen a wide variety of ways to write up an interview. Which one is best? The one that your supervisor prefers, of course! Ask your supervisor to give you an example of an interview that she wrote up (or one of her pet auditors wrote up) and then follow that format.

Here are some possibilities:

• Narrative
• Question and answer
• Source, purpose, procedures, results, and conclusion
• Half-and-half
• Plus/delta

You can even combine types…

Narrative: This is written as a novel, with a beginning and an end—maybe even a few subtitles to break things up. It is a rehash of the entire interview in full sentences and paragraphs.

Q & A: This can be written in full sentences or in bullet points. You include your leading, well thought-out questions and then paraphrase the client’s response

Source, purpose, procedures, results, conclusion: For more on this style, please see my previous newsletter on this topic at www.auditskills.com, November 2004. In this format, the procedures may be your questions and the results may be the answers to the questions, or you can combine the procedures and results into a narrative.     

Half-and-half: I learned this technique in a study skills course in high school; the course that made it possible for me to pass accounting at UT. This technique involves drawing a vertical line down a sheet of notebook paper, leaving about 2/3 for notes and 1/3 for the summary of those notes. When you are conducting the interview, you write your notes on the left two-thirds of the page and when you get back to your desk, you summarize the notes on the right one-third. Yes, this means your interview notes are handwritten. But I like it because it saves time and effort.

Plus/delta: Ask the client to work with you on a list of things that are positives (the plus) and negatives (the delta) about their procedures. Again, you split a page of paper with a vertical line and write a “+” on one side of the paper and a “∆” on the other side of the paper. Then you and the client make a list of the happy things and the things they would like to change. Instead of calling the negative side “negative” —because that has a “negative” connotation—you instead call it “things you’d like to change.”

Make sure that you conclude and allow for follow-up:

In any interview document, you should include a conclusion and a place for necessary follow-up. Nothing worries a peer reviewer more than issues brought up in an interview that are not resolved. You have to do something with them.

And that is our topic for the next newsletter. What do you do when a client brings up something weird?