A local business analysis consulting company, Athena Consultants, is looking to expand!
 
Did you know that central Indiana has an IT consulting company which specializes in Business Systems Analysis? Several years ago, founder and CEO Annie Rayhill looked around the IT consulting firm where she worked and realized that there were a handful of people who were not only good at what they did, but also empowered those around them while they did it.  She wondered what would happen if you took people with this natural inclination and gave them on-board training to enhance this skill, turning empowerment into a company culture. Hence Athena Consultants was born!
Athena Niche
Whenever you build anything, whether it was Thomas Edison inventing the lightbulb or Steve Jobs inventing the iPhone, there are five steps which must be accomplished:
 

 
In software development, when each step is accomplished depends on the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), but each step must be accomplished, Arguably the most important step, the step which most impacts a product’s success, is the first step: the definition of what the product does and how it changes people’s lives. The second most important step is design: that the design you choose is a design that users want to use. When the product is custom-built software, the “definition” step is accomplished by Business Analysts, and the “design” step is accomplished by Systems Analysts. These two hats are often worn by the same person, Business Systems Analysts (who are often called simply “Business Analysts” here in the mid-west.) In addition, Business Analysts also facilitate user acceptance testing. That means that half of the steps necessary to create software are accomplished by us, Business Systems Analysts!
To be good at our jobs, Business Systems Analysts must have a wide range of skills that are unusual to find in one person: relationship building, writing and communication, facilitating groups to come to consensus, understanding technology and the application of logic. The work we do is demanding and often mis-understood by those we work with. The founder of Athena started the company to be able to focus on these crucial individuals and give them the support that they need to succeed.
Athena Culture
Empowerment
What we do at Athena is business systems analysis, what we sell at Athena is empowerment. What does it mean to “empower”?  
To make someone stronger and more confident
But what do people who empower those around them actually do? Our culture focuses on three components:

• Vulnerability
• Empowering Communication
• Boundaries

We have actionable steps in all three of these areas which allow us to empower our clients and each other.
In addition, we utilize W. Edwards Deming’s “Total Quality Management” techniques, which include:

• There is no competition at Athena only cooperation,
• We focus on relationships as the most important aspect of everything we do.
• Our definition of Quality is “exceeding customer expectations”.

Life as an Athena Consultant
Every role in the creation of software is creative, but arguably the role of the Business Systems Analyst is the most creative. We bring order out of chaos, and every situation, with every client, is unique and requires us to create the path we walk on.

• We believe that most people have 7 hours of creativity in them per day, and that 8 is pushing it!  For that reason, 35 hours is full-time at Athena.

We want people (particularly women) to be able to stay in the workforce as family responsibilities pull on them at different points in their lives. For this reason we focus on flexibility:

• We encourage our employees to fit work in around their lives. Nobody is expected to be available between specific hours every day.
• We have full-time, but also part-time hours available.
• We encourage our employees to focus on a life/work balance.

For more information, check out our website: https://athenaconsultants.tech/athena-culture
Athena Differentiators
Agile
Agile is a powerful tool for creating software, but it has some major flaws. It was created by developers for in-house software development, where time and cost can be constrained and requirements left to float. However, in the real-world, clients usually want to know what you’re going to build, how long it will take and how much it will cost! So, the reality is that very often all three are constrained: time, cost and requirements. This makes Agile a challenge to implement. At Athena we have a defined, repeatable process to get around this issue, and it hinges on the BSA and the close working relationships that we build with our clients.
Another flaw with Agile is that it has almost entirely codified skipping the design phase of product development! At Athena we’ve found a way to solve this problem by incorporating User Experience (UX) Design into an Agile methodology.
User Experience (UX) Design
Over the past 25 years there have been two revolutions in the software development industry: Agile and UX Design.  Each one is a methodology, a way to accomplish the five steps necessary to create a new product.  Agile won, and it’s now the industry standard. 
What is User Experience Design?  It’s design that includes:
“Not only the beauty and function of a product, but also things like delight and emotion”
At Athena we have a repeatable, dependable way to incorporate UX Design into an Agile Methodology in a way that not only increases the quality of the end-product but also decreases the overall cost and time to production. Turns out that BSAs and UX Designers create a powerful team!
Athena’s Business Plan
Most IT consulting companies in central Indiana are owned and managed by developers. Their focus is on technology. At Athena Consultants we focus on optimizing company’s internal workflows, then defining and designing a solution to support these optimized operations.
Original Business Plan
Athena’s founder launched the business in early February 2020. Her plan was to be a women-owned business sub-contractor on Indiana state government contracts. Six weeks later the world shut-down due to COVID and so did state government contracts! Like so many companies, we had to pivot.
Current Business Plan
Who are our clients right now? They are other IT consulting companies, who we partner with as the business systems analysts on projects. We’ve also done professional consulting with some of our clients, refining their Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) to use the benefits of Agile and/or incorporating UX design into their Agile methodology.
For more information, check out our website: https://athenaconsultants.tech/partner-with-us
 
Future Business Plan
Our business model, and the clients we’re targeting, has been changing organically since Athena started. Our current marketing focus is companies with business problems that can be solved with custom-built software. Once we define and design a solution, we will partner with one of the many development companies we have a relationship with in central Indiana to help us build the solution.
For more information, check out our website: https://athenaconsultants.tech/solving-problems
Athena is Hiring
We are currently seeking three business systems analysts for new contracts. In addition, we have a full pipeline of potential clients and hope to be hiring more business systems analysts in the near future!
Two of our open positions are full-time and one is part-time. All of the positions require hybrid work, although how many days and which days are worked on-site is flexible.
If you would like to explore becoming an Athena Consultant, please contact Neysa Hess, Head of People Empowerment, at Neysa@AthenaConsultants.tech.