In early 1997, Anne Hartley ( aka "The Hat Lady") was inspired to explore the possibility of starting her own consulting practice.

At that time, she examined a multifaceted twenty-year professional history in the software business, had come to the realization that creating enabling technologies (custom programs and commercial software in her case) was actually the easy part of the equation and not sufficient for realizing any business value. Ms. Hartley also recognized challenges on the business side of the equation in identifying real business problems or opportunities and defining the best response.

She concluded her experience, technical background, business acumen, value and definition sensitivities, proven instincts and track record for what she does best, leadership qualities, and entrepreneurial orientation created a unique offering and opportunity that would help her customers overcome these business and technology gaps and achieve real value.

The time was right...

AH Consulting was born and has evolved around a mission and common theme of optimally aligning business needs and enabling technology and, where possible, positioning technology for competitive advantage. This foundational premise is designed to bring real business value to customers by facilitating holistic, pragmatic solutions that deliver the right response in an optimal, sustainable manner targeting business effectiveness, growth, and viablity.

Practice focus, core competencies, and the mission of AH Consulting have naturally evolved in alignment with the heightened awareness and multifaceted challenges of change and transformational leadership that emerged with the 21st century — and more gaps that need bridging with the same skill set. Companies of all types and sizes are now focused on embracing complexity, change and adaptability in order to remain effective in the short-term while creating new value for long-term viability. The adaptive and multifaceted nature of AH Consulting and Anne Hartley is a perfect fit.

Ms. Hartley recently remarked, "It's 2011 and I have a solid offering that is exactly aligned with prevailing business imperatives: to accept and manage complexity with fresh, creative approaches, to solve costly long-standing problems, to be more efficient on a sustainable basis, and define a future state that is designed to accommodate a climate of uncertainty and change."

If you are interested in the rest of the story, please continue scrolling down or use these links for selected topics of interest:

Mission

Potential Gaps That Need Bridging

Representative Roles and Customer Impacts

Approach, Style and Hat Lady Connection

What is the mission of Anne Hartley and AH Consulting?

The mission of Anne Hartley and AH Consulting is to help customers define and implement a holistic business solution strategy that bridges the gap(s) between current and desired future state with a clear roadmap, success criteria, optimal use of technology for competitive advantage, leadership alignment, roles, responsibilities, practices, and workforce capability — that achieves desired business goals and value proposition — harnessing complexity and anticipating a changing landscape.

What are the potential gaps bridged by AH Consulting?

Services from AH Consulting are provided with special focus on bridging gaps with leadership, experience, understanding, communication, complexity management, and implementation strategies that are common and costly in the context of scenarios such as:

• the gap between current use of technology and what it needs to be to enhance business capability
• the gap between technology and having it be a viable commercial product or service offering
• the gap in workplace efficiency and more cost effective approaches
• the gap in maturity of a supporting practice, discipline, capability, or growth of a business
• the gap in knowing you need to do something but not sure what or how
• the gap in ability to get a new initiative defined and organized with an actionable game plan
• the gap in leadership roles that may be temporary, in a state of development or other transitional context, or experiencing challenges in embracing and dealing with the complex nature of our world
• the gap in a failing or stagnant initiative and what it might take to turn it around or jumpstart
• the gap between wishful thinking and a deliberate plan of action

These gaps lead to serious ramifications for the bottom line: bad decisions, missed opportunity, wasted resources, competitive weakness, inefficient business operation, or implementations that are over budget, late, and under developed — and do not achieve business goals or set a viable stage for the future.

The value proposition for AH Consulting is to help fill the gaps in the most effective way: helping business owners and stakeholders (of problems and opportunities) identify future state, expressing business goals and needs in a way that results in accurate definition and implementation of the right solution in the right way. And helping all participating solution providers better understand business requirements with an implementation strategy that clarifies approach, meets targeted needs, and is designed to embrace change.

What kind of impact does Anne Hartley make?

Ms. Hartley maintains high standards and high expectations for her services. However, the ultimate goal and measure of success is her customers' success. Representative engagements and impacts include:

Transitional and Transformational Leadership

• Serving in Practice Leadership role, initiated and championed professionally-aligned practice with standardized methodology and staff development to improve project formation, execution efficiency and delivery outcomes of business-technology implementations — specifically addressing gaps and weaknesses resulting from insufficient Business Analysis, Solution Architecture and Requirements Management roles. 
• Serving in Practice Management and Implementation Leadership role, identified, intervened, and mitigated significant implementation challenges and potential roadblocks for a strategic business-technology transformation initiative that resulted in a successful outcome.
• Serving in Practice and Solution Architecture leadership role, improved strategic and tactical decision-making and direction-setting capability at all levels of customer's organization.

Business-Technology Solution Strategy and Implementation Leadership

• Serving in Implementation Leadership and Solution Architecture role, solved key points of failure in unsuccessful efforts to complete a strategic transformation; created a multi-year implementation road map that successfully achieved initial business goals and new goals along the way.
• Serving in Implementation and Solution Architecture Leadership role, transformed legacy document automation robustness and variability by a factor of 10,000.

Transitional Startup, Turnaround, and Acquisition Facilitation Leadership

• Serving in Startup Leadership role, helped business technology start-up create critical mass for successful launch and acquisition.
• Serving in Turnaround Leadership role, transitioned a stalled business-technology strategic venture into a successful business turnaround.
• Serving in Turnaround Leadership role, transitioned more than a decade of turmoil into unified action in a 3-month period of time.
• Serving in Startup Leadership role, transferring Business Development experience and skills with software companies to non-technical domains, created new businesses from scratch that target new/emerging markets.

If you would like more insight into the examples listed above, please read the summary of these engagement scenarios.

What's the approach and style of Anne Hartley?

Ms. Hartley offers a unique blend of right-brain / left-brain function, hybrid technical and business orientation with analytical skills, ability to "connect the dots" and help others do the same, ability to decompose complexity into simpler components, natural leadership qualities, good instincts and energy. She always strives to bring to the table: vision, direction, clarity of purpose, audience-aligned articulate communication, pragmatism, experience, and unifying influence — along with a strong sense of commitment and "ownership". She succeeds through exhibiting and encouraging good listening skills, inspiring others, team development, being a model for new roles or behaviors, innovative approaches, collaboration, organization, and mutual respect.

Ms. Hartley's entrepreneurial perspective and passion, personal style, influential leadership qualities, sensitivity to the human impact of change, ability to manage complexity, and established track record naturally align AH Consulting services with change and transformational leadership and engagement model with that of servant leadership.

Ms. Hartley never approaches any engagement with a preconceived solution template. First, she takes time to understand what is needed, relevant history, and then focuses on solution strategies that will draw upon her experience, insight, core competencies, and methodology. It is the nature of AH Consulting and expectation of past performance to be a key player and significant contributor.

So what's the significance of the hat?

Ms. Hartley's professional history reflects a variety of successful roles and responsibilities where she typically "wears multiple hats". This natural tendency along with an affinity for hats has branded her "The Hat Lady" — that also reflects the multifaceted service and exceptional value of Anne Hartley and AH Consulting.