Boulder, Colorado Business Analyst consulting services

Many people here in Boulder, Colorado ask me, "What is a Business Analyst?"

A simple way to answer this is to say, "Tell me about the software or web application do you want to build?" Usually when I first meet them, most clients know vaguely what type of software application they want to build, but when it comes down to the specifics, they have a hard time knowing specifically what they want the software to do.

A business analyst is a listener, designer, and architect

Fear not -- that's okay. I had the same problem when I had a house built several years ago. I knew vaguely what I wanted, including a two-car garage and a nice office, and my wife wanted several other things, including a wrap-around porch. But other than a list of things like that, we didn't know exactly what we wanted.

So the problem here is that we couldn't go right to the builder and say "Build me this house", because we didn't know what house we wanted to build. We first had to work with an architect to design the house.

The same thing is true with software. Unless you want to waste a lot of money, you really don't want to go directly to a computer programmer with a wish list and say "Build this", because you don't really know what you want built.

So, a good Business Analyst typically:

• Listens to your wants and needs.
• Documents those as what we call "requirements".
• Creates a prototype of the system based on those requirements.
• Depending on their skill level, they may also design the architecture of your software application, including the database design, and other parts of the software architecture.

Skill level and experience of a Business Analyst is very important. For instance, in my own work I've covered all those bullet points, and many more (programming, running software teams, etc.), but many business analysts may not be able to handle those last two bullet points (rapidly creating software prototypes, designing databases, and understanding system architecture).

Business Analyst - The end result

As you can imagine, the end result of my work as a Business Analyst is to deliver various design artifacts to you, including:

• A software requirements specification.
• A prototype of your application.
• A database design for your application.
• A planned architecture for your application.

Like any good design, each of these artifacts are custom-tailored to your needs. When our process is finished, you can take this design to any computer programmer or computer programming company and have them implement the design, or, I can also implement it for you.

My Business Analyst consulting experience

In my own experience, I have:

• Written thousands of pages of software requirements specifications.
• Designed hundreds of databases and database tables.
• Designed hundreds of software prototypes.
• Unlike most business analysts, I've also written many thousands of lines of computer software in languages like Java, PHP, Ruby, C, Perl, Scala, and other programming languages.
• Created (and then sold) a fifteen-person, multi-million dollar software development consulting firm.

In my work as a Business Analyst and small business owner, I've worked with dozens -- possibly hundreds -- of business owners, CEOs, CFOs, Vice Presidents of businesses, Project Managers, and end users.

Contact information

If you're interested in learning more about my Business Analyst consulting services, just use my contact form to reach me, or call the phone number shown in the footer below.