Services provided by AH Consulting and specific engagement scenarios will drawn upon one or more core competencies.

For more context about a specific competency, click on its title in the box to the right or continue scrolling down the page to view them in the order listed. Your are welcome to copy and use the content with appropriate attribution.

In addition, AH Consulting can arrange to involve and integrate other third-party service or solution providers as needed to bring additional specialized expertise and resources to the table.

Ms. Hartley is pleased to acknowledge natural alignment with these industry leaders and highly recommends the resources and services they offer:

Doreen Evans (Doreen Evans Associates)
eDev Technologies (Enabling Technology)
Ellen Gottesdiener (EBG Consulting)
Joy Beatty (Seilevel)
Kitty Hass (Kathleen Hass and Associates)
Olixeus' Blogs
Ralph Young (Author, Retired Practitioner and People/Practice/Process Improvement Leader)
Roxanne Miller (Requirements Quest)
Suzanne Robertson and Colleagues (The Atlantic Systems Guild)
Torbin Rick's Blog

Adoption Management Plan:
Typically, "build it and they will come", "buy it and they will use it", or "change it and they will embrace it", has not been a safe proposition, no matter what the context: making necessary changes to your business environment to be more efficient and enhance productivity with or without enabling technology — or introducing a new product or service. We can anticipate and plan for a ramp up where a few will get onboard immediately; the majority will take longer. Some never will and will try to lure others into their camp.

With respect to consumption of products and services, buying habits don't change easily either — unless the new product/service truly "delights" the consumer offering clear value and is very easy to embrace. This consumer-empowered dynamic, easily accessed global marketplace, and rapidly expanding competitive landscape of the 21st century demand products and services that reflect continuous innovation and extreme consumer appeal all the time. Adoption behaviors are responding in kind.

However, inside the workplace, even with the best of intentions, sustainable change is difficult. It is completely dependent on the human performance system. Old habits die hard and resistance is not futile, especially in challenging work environments that are continually expected to do more with less or situations that are bound by continuous turmoil that prevents forward momentum — or perhaps its just the inertia effect.

AH Consulting's approach integrates a technology adoption lifecycle model with critical success factors associated with the human performance system and much higher standards for products and services, in all recommended adoption management plans. It does not matter whether it is process change, new technology or a new product. This is about human behavior...and creating new habits and comfort levels.

More about AH Consulting Adoption Management:

When it comes to changing a business environment, there has to be a real appetite, commitment, and communication that includes a clear, shared vision at all levels of the organization about what successful change looks like — with the political courage and persistence to make it happen. This passion has to become part of the environment's DNA (or "culture"). Then, with regard to how the human performance system responds to change, industry experts who have been focusing on this challenge and opportunity, have validated three key components that contribute to 85% of the critical success factor for sustainable change:

— unambiguous and clear expectation/purpose and audience-appropriate communication about the change (at all levels of the organization starting at the top),

— consistent incentives and consequences (positive and negative) at all levels of the organization and

— consistent feedback (positive and negative) at all levels of the organization.

In this industry-expert perspective, skills and training make up the remaining 15%. Ironically, the natural tendency is to focus on the 15% (skills and training of the practitioners) and not effectively embrace the 85% factors (i.e. the hard part of change).

Ms. Hartley adds that the overarching condition for success is staging change in a manner that can be absorbed by the human performance system and closely managing the throttle as timing is everything: know when to go faster, slower, and maintain. However, there is an inherent sense of urgency that should be driving change — meaning that the ability to assimilate change faster needs to be a goal as well.

And a final determinant is that followers at all levels must be inspired to change through a sense of increased value that will result from embracing the change while being influenced by respected role models ("early adopters", "change leaders"). This is where transformational leadership is key.

When it comes to buying habits for things like new technology (or the parallel concept of accepting a better way of working), you must create demand (receptivity) by changing and creating new habits — and comfort levels. Based on an adoption lifecycle designed to model purchase patterns of hybrid seed corn, Geoffrey Moore published Crossing the Chasm in 1991 that models the receptivity and resistance to technology adoption, positioned as a marketing tool for selling technology. He highlighted the critical dependency of early stage adoption to create the mainstream acceptance (show below) and called it "the chasm" to reflect the special handling that is required to cross it successfully.

Mainstream adoption is represented by Early and Later Majority whose demand (receptivity to change) will be created by the successful adoption of the Innovators and Early Adopters ("champions", "evangelists" ). Initial focus must be directed at being successful with early entry players that will in turn inspire (drive) mainstream adoption.

While the "Chasm fundamentals" remain relevant as time passes, new dynamics and influences of the 21st century have changed the game in terms of threshold for acceptance. Adoption benefactors must consistantly deliver exceptional products and services that attract and retain consumers.

Ms. Hartley recognized early on the parallels in the technology adoption lifecycle model and the dependency on the human performance system, and as a result defined her recommended Adoption Management approach to be based on this hybrid orientation. Change Management plans that are aligned have a much higher probability of working.

Specialized Change Leadership service providers have a similar classification system with appropriately defined responses and techniques.

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Business Analysis Alignment:
The business case for Business Analysis alignment and value proposition is simple: it is the fundamental principle that you need to be certain you have identified the right problem (root cause) or opportunity with appropriate due diligence, and defined the right solution with respect to capability, benefit, feasibility, and return on investment. With respect to technology-enabled solution, Business Analysis is considered the bridge between the "what" and the "how".

Business Analysis needs to be led and performed by skilled Business Analysts (BA) working closely with business owners, subject matter experts (SME), other solution definition and delivery specialists. Frequently a SME and BA are considered interchangeable, leading to a SME without BA skills being assigned to BA roles and vice versa; this is typically not a recipe for success. BAs and SMEs must work in partnership. A SME is typically the expert on "current state" and the BA has the skills to help derive the right definition for desired future state.

AH Consulting services are aligned with the business case for Business Analysis and also this premise: the "cornerstone for change and business transformation is Business Analysis".

Ironically the professional identity, discipline, and value proposition for this key core competency (and critical link between business (what) and technology (how) as well as current state and future state) has only emerged in recent years starting in 2003 with the formation of the International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA). More about this is found in the Business Analysis Capability section.

Companies who are on the forefront of embracing the value proposition for a strong Business Analysis Practice competency will have a competitive advantage.

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Business Analysis (BA) Capability:
Business Analysis encompasses industry, enterprise and project-specific analysis and definition work that:

identifies business problems and opportunities in alignment with strategic goals and enhancing the bottomline;
derives the most innovative and feasible solutions including detailed business and solution requirements for implementation;
facilitates communication and alignment between technical and business (non-technical) domains and solution stakeholders;
is emerging as perhaps the best professional background for leadership roles at all levels (including C-level positions) who must embody creativity and nurture a climate of continuous innovation as core leadership qualities.

As recently as 2010, Gartner and other industry experts for business/technology trends, position Business Analysis capability as a key link to transformation and change (and the hot job market). Companies who are on the forefront of embracing the value proposition for a strong Business Analysis capability will have a greater likelihood of success and competitive advantage.

In addition to AH Consulting's natural Business Analysis Alignment, Ms. Hartley can help you secure temporary BA services or help you establish and develop a right-sized, skilled BA practice or BA Center of Excellence within your organization designed to be a strategic corporate asset and the "cornerstone for transformation" — aligned with the ultimate BA Value Proposition. Ms. Hartley can also serve in an interim transitional management capacity.

Other related industry resource links:

More about the Business Analysis professional emergence:

Because of the inherent dependency on the quality of this competency in defining future state and successful outcome at any level (especially when enabling technology is involved), the Business Analysis professional identity finally emerged in 2003, led by the formation of the International Institute of Business Analysis IIBA.

IIBA has made significant and impressive progress characterizing the value proposition, creating the practice identity, knowledge areas, membership based community of practitioners, corporate membership, local chapters, standards, techniques, methodologies, requisite skills, experience, accreditations, career paths for Business Analysts, and assessment tools.

IIBA has also rallied and aligned supporting service and training providers and is now working closely with Project Management Institute (PMI) to help drive and lead professional alignment with Project Management.

Through its creation and publication of the BA Body of Knowledge (BABOK), IIBA defines the knowledge areas to be:

Enterprise (or company) analysis
Business analysis planning and monitoring
Requirements Elicitation
Requirements Analysis
(also known as Requirements Engineering)
Communication and management
Solution assessment and validation

These knowledge areas are the underlying competencies for Requirements Management (RQM): supporting project (or program) execution lifecycle disciplines and is ultimately accountable for delivering the right [technology-enabled] business change or transformations and foundational elements of the broader Business Analysis spectrum.

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Business Analytics Alignment:
The evolution of Business Analysis has aligned with increased information-based and data-centric analytical techniques called Business Analytics and is also described as "the science of business analysis". While instincts, intuition, and observation will always have a place, the best outcomes are a result of the best data, information, and decision-making approaches used to derive and validate the best definition of business strategies and solutions. Business Intelligence is closely related.

AH Consulting services are naturally aligned with information-based approaches and data-driven decision making. This would involve working closing with customer's Business Analytics resources and, as needed, bringing other targeted business analytic expertise, roles, and responsibilities into the picture.

More about Business Analytics:

In a nutshell, mathematical representations are used to describe the business problem, opportunity, and best response. Once technology-enabled business solutions are implemented, operational analytics for management oversight and tracking are typically reflected in scorecards and dashboards.

The approach to Business Analytics for a specific business scenario can range from reporting, queries, and Excel spreadsheets to complex computer-based applications with huge amounts of data managed in data warehouses.

Definition/development techniques include modeling (business, process, automation, and data), simulations, what-if scenarios, statistical analysis, optimization (choosing the best option from several alternatives) and predictive techniques that includes something called Game Theory that embraces complex business decision-making when an individual decision is based on the decision of others (or other outside influences).

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Business Development:
AH Consulting can help you pursue new market opportunities for commercial off-the-shelf software through solution-oriented sales approaches, OEMs, distributors, and strategic alliances. If effect, find potential customers or business partners by profiling business problems which can be solutioned through selected vendor technology deployment.

Ms. Hartley has demonstrated that these same technology-aligned business development skills and practices are transferable across business domains.

Business Requirements:
Ms. Hartley is a strong proponent of the premise that "the business" (party held accountable for realizing the business value of the requested change and financial investment) must be the owner for defining in very clear (non-technical terms) the business value in business terms that a sprint, iteration, project or program will be held accountable for delivering with specificity that covers the interest of all consumers.

While this definition stage should be articulated from a business perspective, the development of the content should reflect a collaborative effort with input from all project implementation stakeholders — to ensure that all interests are covered and that different perspectives are brought into play. This body of work is a work product of and aligned with Business Analysis. It is best developed by trained Business Analysts (BA) serving in role(s) of leadership and practice specialists, as a liaison and facilitator across the spectrum of contributors and areas of concern.

AH Consulting can help facilitate the best requirements definition that is optimized for a specific implementation and desired outcome.

More about Business Requirements:

Within a traceability model, Business Requirement information content should trace up to Business Objective and Scope Definition. If you have content that does not find a home in either, then it should be eliminated as a requirement — or elevated for a business decision to expand Scope. The following items typically frame the information content and context:

Problem or Opportunity Articulation
Measurable Business Objectives
Relevant AS IS Foundational Definition
Organizational / Business Impacts
Business and Enterprise Architecture Alignment
Process / Operational Context and Impacts
Prioritization
Stakeholder Requests ("raw requirements" that include business rationale and goal)
Refined and Validated TO BE Requirements with clear business goal or purpose with each, elaborated to address:
— Solution Scope (capability, characteristics)
— All Other Project Scope Items
Risk Analysis and Mitigation Approaches
Constraints

With the goal of eliminating voluminous documentation with unstructured content that is virtually impossible to consume as well as eliminating unnecssary work or rework and missed windows of opportunity, the Scope definition and any other constraining factors should be used to restrain and organize the elaborated business requirements content for efficient downstream implementation and timely delivery.

It is also important to capture this (and all requirement) information in a container (repository) that is well organized and easy to consume, share, and accommodate audience-specific views, adhering to the "just enough" guiding principle with the operative word being enough — for the relevant stage of the definition work and in alignment with the holistic Requirements Approach and Management Plan and efficient downstream execution.

Why is AS IS so important? Understanding the AS IS state (people, process, technology, and data flow) is a critical starting point for defining the TO BE state. If you do not take the time to establish this context with appropriate detail, you will likely specify a TO BE solution that has major flaws. Talking through the AS IS solution is a proven technique for discovering siloed solution components and practice changes that are not on the radar, uncovering important solution features and subtleties that need to be considered (included, changed, or avoided) in the TO BE solution — that typically do not surface if you jump right into TO BE discussions. A seasoned Business Analyst (BA) will have the requisite skills to ask the right questions, facilitate communication and alignment across the project team and solution stakeholders, recognize disconnects and gaps, and know when to shift focus to the TO BE definition — and should insist that it be done as good due diligence practice. This is the "art" of Business Analysis.

Business/Technology Liaison:
AH Consulting can serve as a channel of communication between business users and technology providers to ensure clear understanding by both. This role may also involve serving as an interface between IT or Development, Marketing, Sales, Vendors, and Customers.

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Change Leadership:
A true Change Agent must be willing to put his or her job on the line and take risks every day and be the first to recognize when he or she is losing effectiveness in the role. Ms. Hartley accepts her role as a Change Agent as normal practice and expects her value of service to be the ultimate condition of engagement. The best approach is a partnership between AH Consulting and customer's accountable management personnel, internal continuous improvement initiatives, or business unit aligned with change or transformational leadership.

As a Transformational Leader, Ms. Hartley understands the challenges for achieving sustainable change, brings transferable experience and lessons learned to the table to draw upon, and will serve as a unifying influence to help you and your team define the right change with a pragmatic approach and sustainable adoption management plan. She can also help you implement the strategy for change or a new beginning, and if desired, serve in an interim role model leadership capacity.

More about Change and Transformational Leadership:

Change can mean improving upon current state to get to a better future state or a completely new beginning. In either case, "Build it and they will come" is typically not a safe bet when it comes to the human performance system, no matter how much better, intuitive and easy-to-use the recommended change might be.

Yet so much wasted resources and opportunity costs are applied to "building it" over and over. In reality "building it" or in the case for defining and validating new or improved business solutions is the easy part of the equation. Getting cooperation, sustained adoption and return on investment, that all depend on the human performance system and a rigorous adoption management strategy, is the hard part.

Transformational leadership is about sustainable change in a meaningful and manageable way that takes human behavior and normal patterns of adoption and resistance into consideration. This is the very change that is required to get beyond current state, achieve higher levels of efficiency, and eliminate wasted effort and resources. Transformational leaders set a clear vision and purpose for change that inspire followers to embrace, through a sense of increased value and belief in their abilities and pride in adoption.

Internal Change Agents are certainly a necessary component but must be cultivated to be Change Leaders. Internal employees, as a whole, tend to tread carefully in terms of how far they are willing to push the envelope as a change agent. On more than one occasion, employees have expressed in private how glad they were that Ms. Hartley was there to say what needed to be said (and they wanted to say but did not feel comfortable expressing) or promote the case for change in some other manner. The ultimate goal is to create and nurture an atmosphere that will encourage internal Change Leaders to step up as well as mainstream followers.

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Complexity Management:
The business environment, and challenges we face in a global economy of the 21st century are inherently complex. To be successful, you must be able to harness it and even leverage for competitive advantage as highlighted in IBM's 2010 CEO Study: "Capitalizing on Complexity" with findings summarized as follows:

Today's complexity is only expected to rise.
Creativity is the most important leadership quality.
The most successful organizations co-create products and services with customers, and integrated customers into core processes.
Better performers manage complexity on behalf of their organizations, customers, and partners.
To capitalize on complexity, CEOs must prepare their organizations to:
— embody creative leadership
— build operating dexterity
— reinvent customer relationships

Ms. Hartley is naturally aligned with these findings and she can help your organization get there. Her approaches and contributions reflect that alignment. She is also recognized for her ability to assimilate complex scenarios and break them down into simpler manageable parts — and help others connect the dots (at all levels of an organization, their customers, and business partners).

More insight into Ms. Hartley's perspective: connection to Transformational Leadership:

Business viability as a whole and our ability to crack the tough nuts like healthcare reform in a consumer-empowered, global economy with complex game-changing market and regulatory influences that are constant, and extremely complicated interdependencies demand a set of core competencies that must "all" be realized as "the new norm" and no longer "the holy grail" or "nice to have": 1) internal innovation capability, 2) complexity management capability, 3) hyper "external customer" focus, 4) agility to respond quickly, 5) obsession with business value realization, and 6) optimized efficiency.

Piecemeal and silo-ed approaches to this proposed set of core competencies will not produce the cumulative effect required and incremental progress will typically not be sustained. They must be embraced holistically from the top with a leadership paradigm shift and elimination of outdated management practices that are the real barrier and, in reality, anti-transformation (assuming best intentions and best efforts). Real transformational leadership.

Grassroots and individualized efforts alone that have been in play for years are largely neutralized over time without a corporate culture overhaul that creates a fertile environment to develop and nurture "the new norm". The latter starts at the top and must be integrated throughout enterprise workforce strategies, political management, enterprise practices, expectations, and performance management behaviors and incentives at all levels of an organization.

See how AH Consulting's Business Analysis practice focus is aligned.

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Definition ("what and why") :
Regardless of the undertaking, the quality of the definition of the targeted outcome ultimately determines the quality of the outcome itself. Inadequate definition at all levels is the most significant contributor to costly gaps, wasted time and resources, and missed business goals.

With respect to technology-enabled implementations: it does not matter which project or software development lifecycle approach (waterfall, agile, iterative, spiral, etc.) or implementation method (whether or not you are developing in-house software, using a configuration-based commercial off-the-self (COTS) product, an Application Service Provider (ASP) solution or developing web-based enabling technology) — you must apply the right definition approach/discipline with appropriately aligned communication, information and knowledge management techniques to be successful.

Definition activities and outputs (at all levels) serve as critical communication and alignment tools to validate that the right solution is being requested and is aligned with project success criteria — foundational for both Project Management and Requirements Management lifecycle implementation oversight disciplines.

The quality of decision-making is also a key determinant for the quality of definition. The more data and information driven decision making, the better. This is the intersection of Business Analytics and Business Analysis.

AH Consulting can serve in several leadership roles with respect to Definition activities:

Create a plan for the definition work that is aligned with the type of implementation
Provide oversight with respect to management to plan, quality and usability of the definition content
Facilitate definition activities for a targeted business goal or
Create a Business Analysis and Requirements Definition practice

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Frameworks and Roadmaps:
Ms. Hartley is a strong believer that you must spend the time up front to agree on overarching context, guiding principles and implementation strategy that will be followed to achieve the desired business objective — a key deliverable of AH Consulting's Solution Architecture practice.

AH Consulting's approach is to first see what is already available from the plethora of industry resources, artifacts in customer's achieves, as well as the AH Consulting archive that can be adapted. Sometime the initiative is so specialized that it requires creating a framework and roadmap from scratch.

AH Consulting services can also be engaged to help customers select, adapt, integrate and adopt a selected industry-aligned framework associated for a specific capability and achieve its value proposition. Focus areas include Business Analysis, Requirements Management, and Project Management — in pursuit of developing or expanding a competency and being more effective, efficient, and predictable in its application.

Incorporation of and alignment with reference models (such as the Zachman Framework) and how they should be applied (i.e. not just a pretty picture on the wall or a nebulous concept that no one gets), is a natural by-product.

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Gap and Impact Analysis:
AH Consulting can help you clarify current state, define desired future state then produce a gap analysis between the two. This may include but not limited to processes, workflow, automation, challenges, skills, and business opportunities. This can be combined with Solution Architecture services to create a Solution Strategy designed to close the gaps.

In conjunction with the gap analysis and proposed solution strategy, it is essential to fully understand the impact across the entire entire enterprise or company. This sets the foundational stage for the adoption management plan and change leadership approach that are key component of scope definition and implementation planning.

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Health Payer Solutions:
Ms. Hartley has spent a significant amount of time working with a recognized health insurance company in several business-technology transformation leadership and individual contributor roles, through long-standing and repeat engagements.

As a result she is very familiar with the end-to-end business model, regulatory and political influences, enabling technologies, competitive landscape — and the impact of healthcare reform and its uncertainty.

This is a good example of the adaptive nature of AH Consulting and how its services and core competencies naturally transfer across business domains and technologies.

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Ideation and Innovation:
You know you need to do something; but you don't know what. AH Consulting can help facilitate brainstorming sessions, vetting of ideas, or propose suggested strategies — or some of all. Ms. Hartley is recognized for thinking "out of the box" and bringing innovative approaches to the table. However, she is a firm believer that, before a solution strategy and roadmap can be developed, one needs to understand and validate relevant aspects of current state as the starting point, to be clear about what needs to change, why it needs to change, and in what way.

Unless it is truly a greenfield initiative, simply starting with a "clean slate" approach or just focusing on the "TO BE" (disregarding current or "AS IS" state) will not produce a successful recipe for change; in fact you will most likely redefine current state and think it is something new. It's important to have a mixture of perspectives, roles, and expertise involved in the process: those who are subject matter experts of the current state, visionaries, and analysts who are skilled at assimilation, connecting the dots, bringing what-if scenarios to the table, and asking lots of questions.

In either case, innovation focused on delighting customers and creating wealth for the business is the bottomline. Incremental improvement strategies are no longer competitive.

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Project Management:
AH Consulting services embrace solid Project Management practice disciplines ("making it happen"), understands the dependency on Business Analysis and Requirements Management (i.e. getting "it" defined accurately) — and the power of an optimal PM/BA partnership. (Sometimes the PM and BA can be the same person, if he or she reflects the necessary cross-section of skills — and the workload with quality output is manageable.)

More about Project Management:

Projects are the delivery mechanism for change and transformation initiatives. It is the organizing principal and overarching delivery management framework for making it happen. Projects can be small and contained or large, multifaceted, complex implementations. Regardless, the Project Management lifecycle includes four key components: Initiation, Planning, Execution, and Close.

One or more Project Managers (PM) are typically assigned to run the project working in close collaboration with a project leadership team and supporting cast. A project plan and schedule is scalable to the size and complexity of the initiative. It can be as simple as a list of things to do on a piece of paper and as complex as thousands of project schedule elements managed in an appropriate tool like Microsoft Project.

The definition of what change or transformation a specific project must deliver is established and maintained by Requirements Management practices (led by appropriately skilled and experienced Business Analysts). For optimal outcomes, it is imperative that this practice be tightly aligned and integrated with Project Management practices.

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Requirements Excellence:
Ms. Hartley is a strong proponent of the premise that the quality of any outcome is completely dependent on the quality of the definition of what is requested. Furthermore the definition has to be captured in a manner that can be communicated and shared with others; and its integrity must be maintained throughout the implementation lifecycle so that what is delivered reflects what is requested.

AH Consulting helps define the best requirements definition approach and management plan (including recommended enabling technologies) that is optimized for a specific implementation and desired outcome.

AH Consulting provides oversight and leadership throughout the implementation lifecycle in the execution of the work and management to plan, to help ensure high-quality definition content and practices that are appropriately integrated across other streams of work and collaborating practices.

More about Requirements / Definition:

While the approach may vary depending on the implementation lifecycle methodology, the value proposition for getting definition right (the first time) applies to all:

Validate that the requested solution (or solution component) is accurate.
Find problems and gaps with the requested solution where they are cheapest to address.
Validate that solution delivery is decomposed, right-sized, sequenced and staged in an optimal manner.
Validate that requested solution remains aligned with financial business case and expected benefits.
Eliminate downstream rework.
Achieve downstream efficiencies by reusing (and not redefining) definition content.

Representative Definition activities and/or outcomes are listed below — all in the context of defining and maintaining the integrity of "what" the solution or solution component must deliver. Roles, techniques and artifacts are aligned with the specific methodology being used:

Business Objectives and Success Criteria
Project and Solution Scope (high-level requirements)
Requirements Approach and Management Plan
Elaborated and Prioritized Business Requirements
User Stories
Associated Business Process Context and Methodology
Experimentation, Modeling, Visualization, and Prototypes
Enabling Technology Specifications
(User Scenarios / Functional, Non-Functional, Analytics, Reporting, etc.)
User / Web Interface Design Collaboration
Functional / Technical Design Collaboration
Non-Technical Requirements
Testing Collaboration and Alignment
Interfaces and Data Exchanges for Ancillary Systems
Third-party COTS, ASP, or Outsourced Service Provider Integration (RFP, Selection, Statements of Work, Installation and Training, Specifications, Design, Integration, Traceability)
Bi-directional Traceability Links
Change Impacts
Approvals

Ms. Hartley strongly recommends the use of enabling technologies for requirements definition, communication, information and traceability management such as inteGREAT from eDev Technologies. The result is more efficient, consistent, and higher quality practices and outcomes. InteGREAT offers an end-to-end integrated knowledge management solution that supports a comprehensive requirements-related data model referenced throughout the Application Development Lifecycle.

Other related industry resource links:

Requirements Management (Wikipedia)

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Scope Definition:
AH Consulting's methodology promotes and positions scope definition as a key deliverable and milestone that is the earliest indicator for the success (or failure) of your endeavor. Traditionally, related deliverables may not be understood or valued, may be glossed over or done without sufficient specificity for it to be effective.

There are 2 flavors of scope that need to be taken into consideration:

Project Scope
Solution/Product Scope

Solution/Product Scope should be viewed as staging to determine where the more detailed definition work (requirements) needs to be focused — and, in effect, serve as high level requirements.

Ms. Hartley insists on Scope Definition activity and deliverables whose content is clear, prioritized, decomposed into the right-sized deliverables, actively managed, and used as a guide throughout implementation. It should always reflect the value proposition from the business case (i.e. cost/benefit analysis).

More about Scope Definition:

The two flavors of Scope are defined in more detail as follows:

Project Scope is aligned with the work breakdown structure (WBS) of a projects to reflect project components, key deliverables and milestones. Its content should align with the project schedule and is the responsibility of the Project Manager and subject to PM disciplines to define and maintain.

Solution/Product Scope is aligned with the resulting business/technology capability that is to be delivered through process and software automation. It should reflect any known constraints (design, approach, etc), what is not in scope, and is a key deliverable that is best defined and managed by an experienced Business Analyst or Business Solutions Architect. The resulting key activity milestones and deliverables would be components of Project Scope and project schedule. In terms of traceabiity models, Solution/Product Scope lies between business objectives and requirements. Use case system or domain diagrams and context diagrams are excellent communication tools to describe scope in a graphical representation.

Scope statement is also a term used in PM disciplines; however this can give an unfamiliar audience the mistaken idea that the content can be too high level and vague.

The box paradigm works well to describe the relationship between Scope Definition and Requirements/WBS. Scope Definition describes the box and requirements or WBS are the elaboration of Scope into details to fill the box.

Note: as you decompose and prioritize scope items, it may result in multiple releases to be delivered. The BA and PM should be working together in partnership to ensure that each release has an appropriately aligned project schedule and that the outcome of the release reflects exactly what the scope called for.

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Solution Architecture:
AH Consulting's flavor of Solution Architecture (SA) purposely puts a broader, holistic spin on what has traditionally been technology-dominant.

The Solution Architecture competency ensures that recommended responses and resolutions to the following:

Ideation, Business Solution Strategies, Frameworks, and Roadmaps
Technology Alignment
Implementation Planning and Readiness
Implementation Issues, Challenges and Roadblocks

are approached collaboratively and holistically from the desired business outcome, cost effectiveness, internal and external dependencies, and solution delivery perspectives — sufficiently vetted and validated — resulting in a definition, approach and execution roadmap that will deliver the right outcome at the right time in the right way.

Representative output includes, but not limited to, a business architecture, enterprise architecture, and Solution Scope definition that includes clear success criteria, enough granularity to be effective, and is decomposed into right-sized, prioritized solution deliverables.

Identifying and eliminating high-risk factors early and building an underlying solution approach that anticipates and adapts readily to change is a critical success factor. Finding the right balance among many business influences and constraints is essential.

More about AH Consulting's SA approach:

Ms. Hartley works with collaborating parties to understand and assess business strategy, goals, opportunities, or project-related challenges — ensuring clearly defined success and failure criteria. She then helps decompose findings into logical components, performs problem or opportunity and feasibility analysis; then draws upon experience, insight, methodologies, innovative approaches and perhaps other specialized service providers to develop a context-specific solution strategy framework and implementation roadmap that is aligned with the desired outcome, is pragmatic and achievable. She does this work in alignment with Business Analysis core competency.

Resulting solution strategies, depending on the context, can be multifaceted and may encompass business architecture as well as IT architecture, enabling technology, organizational design and readiness, communication plan, training, and measured adoption management.

It may also involve process and workflow [re-]engineering, software technology development by customer's team or outsource, hardware, integration of third-party products, new/changed roles and responsibilities. If applicable it may include product development, sales, marketing, and business development alignment. It may also involve determining the best approaches for sub components of the targeted solution.

For large, multifaceted solution strategies, implementation leadership roles must be sufficiently staffed to serve as key communication link, integrator, and unifying influence among stakeholders with different backgrounds, experience, and all level of an organization. It involves cross-discipline team collaboration, plus managing vendor or other strategic business partner relationships.

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Startup / Turnaround Leadership:
The startup phase in the life of a business (or new way of working) is a very special time and has special challenges - and it's not for everyone! However, for true entrepreneurs it is a wonderfully exciting and motivating experience. Having the attitude to lead by example and "do what it takes" with a sense of urgency is the bottom line. Being entrepreneurially oriented, AH Consulting fits in very well with startup or scenarios within companies or organizations who recognize the need to make significant changes.

The same skills and mindset also apply to Turnaround scenarios and can be positioned in many ways as a "re-Startup". Startup practices also apply to established corporate environments that must embrace new ways of working for long term viability. The adoption model describing human reaction that must be managed through disciplined Change Leadership practices is all the same: leaders, early adopters, mainstream, and resistors.

AH Consulting role(s) can be both strategic in helping to shape overall direction and logistics for implementation and achieving critical mass milestones, finding early adopters and attention to other focused startup or turnaround activities. This may also include general guidance and best-practice coaching through the startup phase, working with investors to assess investment opportunity and business status, and serving in key operational/leadership roles on an interim basis.

Technical Consultation:
Ms. Hartley's professional career began as a programmer; she is naturally logic-driven and a bit of a "geek" at heart (but manages to keep it under wraps pretty well). While she gravitated toward challenges with business value realization focusing more closely on the business side of the equation, she has remained integrally connected to technology, related conceptual frameworks, software evolution, and configuration-based commercial applications. As a result Ms. Hartley is also a very effective translator and liaison between technology and business.

AH Consulting engagements can be leveraged as a helping hand to derive business benefit from specific software or in a broader capacity.

Technical Requirements:
Technical requirements are typically associated with sufficiently detailed specifications, use cases, or other forms of communication that describe the functional behavior of and interfaces with automation or other enabling technology. These and all other types of requirements are covered by Requirements Management practices during the project execution lifecycle.

AH Consulting is very familiar with all types of requirements and well-positioned to ensure there are no gaps.

Technology Commercialization:
The first twenty years of Ms. Hartley's career involved software development, beginning as a programmer and then working for commercial software companies of various stages of maturity, in roles of technical and people leadership. These roles involved product management, interaction with customers, defining new features, participation in user groups, working closely with developers, strategic business development, customer service, quality management, product release management (beta, early release, general availability stages), maintenance, and sales support.

Understanding the difference between "technology" and a "product" or "solution" is fundamental to the notion of commercialization. As a result of Ms. Hartley's background, AH Consulting brings significant software commercialization experience to the table — from development implications to fulfillment, adoption, and support — encompassing whole product lifecycle.

If you have a specific idea for a possible commercial software product, software as a service (SAAS), web-enabled solution, cloud-based solutions, and mobile apps and need help, AH Consulting can assist and even assemble and lead a team to make it happen.

This experience and capability is transferable to non-technical domains. Read more about Business Development.

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Technology Deployment:
Enabling technology (i.e. automation, domain specific software applications with built-in methodology, desktop tools) offers significant opportunities for process improvement and throughput as well as quality and consistency of output. It is a key component for competitive advantage.

Perhaps you have invested in technology that is not being utilized or not being used to its full capacity.

AH Consulting can help you realize the return on the investment in technology already made to enhance your business environment. AH Consulting can also help you identify new opportunities.

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Timeboxing Methodology :
There are very compelling reasons why timeboxing is fundamental to agile and iterative approaches and lean practices in general — and why Ms. Hartley is a strong proponent. It is a great influence for any undertaking to focus activity, align priorities and resources, manage scope, avoid waste or rework — with an appropriate sense of urgency and attention to value delivery. Timing is everything.

The underlying assumption is that we must be good at right-sizing work that will fit the timebox. At the same time we must also be focused on increasing productivity and throughput in order to get more done in a respective timebox.

Suffice it to say that there is much inherent resistance to this approach because people seem to interpret this as a one-size fits all perspective, may not naturally seek ways to be more efficient, and simply lack the requisite skills. Timeboxing is a capability and discipline that should be high on the list for organizational development and productivity improvements.

AH Consulting always employs timeboxing to best advantage with an inherent sense of urgency and performance expectation.

Wikipedia has this to say about timeboxing.

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Vendor Assistance:
Work with software vendors who may need onsite representation in this region. As part of this engagement AH Consulting would become appropriately acquainted with vendor's product/solution offerings and their client's deployment.

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Vendor Selection:
Research and recommend third-party products based on a thorough analysis and understanding of solution requirements. This may involve RFI (request for information) and RFP (request for proposal) development to solicit selected vendor responses. Results are tracked, consolidated, and measured using an Excel-based tool developed specifically to support this initiative.

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