Scaling Smart Business Growth
A Strategic Workbook for Scaling Startups and Emerging Businesses
This book is about how to build a better, stronger, more profitable emerging business or startup. It focuses on four areas: Financial Management, Marketing and Sales, Operations Management, and Team and Time Management. For executives seeking a strategic roadmap, these four areas will get you outside the box and point the way to profitability.
The questions we pose in each of these areas aim to scale efficiency, with a focus on strength and sustainability. Our intent is to remove the barriers of the conventional business box, and to open immediate opportunities for a stronger, more profitable business.
Available as a friendly PDF or as a hardcopy from Amazon.
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Winning More Clients: From Prospect to Profit
To help you turn your consulting practice into the thriving business you want it to be, Trond Frantzen, Managing Partner of the PowerStart Group, has crafted a book on practical advice to help you win more clients – bringing them from prospect to profit.
Whether your background is that of a management consultant, a software developer, an accountant, or an entrepreneur – it’s pretty certain you want to build a strong and steady consulting business. But, the challenges of increased competition and of getting the word out about your consulting services can sometimes get in the way. This book will guide you past those challenges.
You’ve worked hard and earned your dues. You deserve the rewards that come from putting in the time and effort to be good at what you do.
The challenge, however, is that rewards don’t show up just because you’ve paid the dues. Rewards come from knowing how to find more clients, and putting in the work to get the contracts that make your business successful.
This book will guide you on the path to win more clients, from prospect to profit.
Available as a friendly PDF or as a hardcopy from Amazon.
Accelerated Business System Analysis - A Roadmap for Requirements Elicitation Success
From the Foreword by Professor Emeritus Dr. Nigel Waters, University of Calgary
Former Director, Center for Excellence for GIS, George Mason University
Trond Frantzen’s book, Accelerated Business System Analysis, is a tour-de-force. Business systems analysis is critical to the successful operation of any organization. Not only does Trond’s book provide a detailed history of the landmark achievements of business systems analysis, but it also describes, in detail, the “how” and the “why” of carrying out business systems analysis in your own firm or industry.
The book describes the mechanics of business systems analysis and explains in straightforward language how this is fundamental to successful analysis, but without the pain of a technical rabbit hole. A most attractive feature are the beautifully clear diagrams – hundreds of them – that supplement the narrative.
What will readers take away that is different from other books on business requirements? You will quickly find all the right questions to ask, and you’ll know when you are done. You will also find questions that were not discovered before, and you’ll be able to do this while preventing “scope creep”. Most importantly, you’ll be able to determine when the task is complete and there are no more questions to ask (no more “Errors and Omissions Excepted”). The result will be a small, easily understood business-focused requirements specification. And, lastly, if the project needs to design a database this can be achieved based on business needs.
Available as a friendly PDF or as a hardcopy from Amazon.
Managing Successful Requirements Projects
Is This Book for Me?
If you are involved in any aspect of the process of system development, from beleaguered analyst to frustrated programmer, this book should give you strong insight into front-end project planning, and how you can make it much better.
Aren’t There a Lot of Other Books Just Like This One?
There are books about system requirements analysis, and there are books on project planning and management. There are even books on methodologies for each of these. But not much that brings together project planning and requirements analysis. This book addresses the questions of, where do I begin, and what do I do next? not by providing pages of checklists, or specific tools (I’m confident you know what you need), but by focusing attention on the nature of business system requirements analysis and the environment in which the requirements must be determined.
So, What Won’t This Book Teach Me?
Magic and witchcraft. A cool programming language. Where to buy things cheap.
Well, What Will It Teach Me?
With luck, and some dedicated application, I hope it will show you how to think about putting together a really good, robust, actionable, and result-driven project plan for the business requirements analysis phase of your project. It will enable you to schedule detailed discovery sessions, set the tone for the project, right up front, and establish your credibility as a business analyst.
Available as a friendly PDF or as a hardcopy from Amazon.
Rapid Agile Business System Analysis
We know that one of the biggest challenges for any analyst is the awkward issue of how to get a project started as quickly as possible. An analyst needs to be visible and productive just about right away because clients think of them as people who can walk on water while so many others pass water. Analysts who come into an organization or are assigned a project often have little background on what makes it tick or who has the knowledge, but are still expected to become visibly productive just about right away.
The PowerStart Analysis Method illustrated in this book will help. It has been used on over 850 projects, from just about every industry, in large and small organizations, government and non-government. It's fast and accurate. The emphasis is on delivering business value early, and how you are seen to do it.
Available as a friendly PDF or as a hardcopy from Amazon.
How to Run Awesome Business Discovery Sessions
What is a Business Discovery Session?
A "Business Requirements Discovery Session" is an interactive approach to conducting meetings with clients and subject-matter experts to probe and establish a project's business and organizational requirements. These highly interactive sessions include clients, business analysts, subject-matter experts, business partners, executives, and some system professionals. But not necessarily everyone at once.
These discovery sessions are based on sound principles of analysis, but with greater flexibility and more suited to modern business practices. They are much more complete, and faster than conventional business system analysis. These discovery sessions produce great savings by shortening the elapses time required to gather business system requirements and by improving the completeness and quality of the requirements gathered. The process is significantly faster and reduces the number of costly downstream changes. The approach is based on successful interactive sessions on over 850 projects with organizations worldwide.
Available as a friendly PDF or hardcopy from Amazon.
Process Modeling for Business Analysts Made Easy
Many people say business process modeling is challenging, difficult, and requires a lot of practice. They have been saying this for years, and there are scores of books showing exactly how difficult and complex it can be.
But this simply isn't true.
So, how do you solicit business requirements? How do you discover the real needs and problems of the business? How do you determine the questions to ask? How do you document the answers?
This book provides a practical solution to each of these important questions. Trond Frantzen's "PowerStart Analysis Method" for Business Requirements Analysis provides a clear alternative to the legacy methods of wishy-washy, vague and non-specific specifications.
The results will always be clear, concise, unambiguous, in business terms, and brief.
Available as a friendly PDF or hardcopy from Amazon.
Mastering Business Requirements Analysis
This comprehensive book is for Business Analysts, Business System Analysts, and anyone involved in requirements analysis, elicitation or gathering.
It addresses how to determine business requirements. It answers the all-important question: How do you discover the needs and problems of the business. An how do you do it quickly? How do you determine the questions to ask? How do you document the answers?
This book provides practical solutions to each of the important issues that are captured by these questions and more. The "PowerStart" approach to Business Requirements Analysis provides a clear alternative to the legacy methods that have never quite got the job done.
With the methods detailed in this book you will always have business requirements specifications that are clear, concise, unambiguous, in business terms, and brief. And guaranteed to be complete.
Available as a friendly PDF or hardcopy from Amazon.