Ms. Emmons started her career in state government as a customer of information systems about 30 years ago. After several years, she transferred to the “Data Processing” section of the department, and learned to technically maintain the systems of which she had previously been a customer. This gave her a unique understanding of both the business requirements of the applications and the technical solution for those requirements. She was a maintenance programmer for several years before moving on to more process oriented assignments and tasks for the now “Information Technology (IT)” section, i.e., development and maintenance process improvements through standards, policies, procedures, quality control and quality assurance.

The experiences of having both a customer orientation background, and a technical background in programming techniques and maintenance of applications has given her a unique perspective of systems and their place in an organization as a whole. This has contributed greatly to her success in her consulting career. She is effective in facilitating good communication and dialogue between the technical and business team members of projects, and has often been called the ‘translator’ for the business team members.

Barbara is familiar with several Software Development Life Cycles (SDLC), including traditional 'waterfall' and iterative approaches. These include 1) RUP - Rational Unified Process - an iterative software development framework created by the Rational Software Corporation; 2) Microsoft Solutions Framework - MSF is a disciplined approach to technology projects based on a defined set of principles, models, disciplines, concepts, guidelines, and proven practices from Microsoft; and 3) Washington State's Department of Information Services - BOIE - Business Oriented Information Engineering Methodology - An information engineering process for developing software. (no longer being used). There are many similarities between these SDLCs and other system development methodologies available in the industry, new/updated versions are constantly being developed. Barbara has the knowledge and experience to learn and adapt quickly to whatever SDLC an organization is using for their application development methodology.

In previous years, Barbara has actively and efficiently used Function Point Analysis (FPA) as another tool for documentation of the systems functionality. She was a Certified Function Point Specialist (CFPS) for several years and as a private consultant, conducted training on this method, and assisted organizations in using FPA to understand the functionality and size of their systems. This information can also be very useful in understanding the productivity and project delivery rates for different applications. She is not currently a Certified Function Point Specialist.

Her mission (in business and life) is to live with integrity and to make a difference in the lives of others.

Her resume is available here.