Hewlett Packard Enterprise  in Diegem was the place to be for the next IIBA Brussels Chapter evening event organized on April 21^th 2016. Keynote speaker Filip Hendrickx tried to answer the question if lean strategy execution is a BA’s cup of tea? Filip brought to our audience an extract of the workshop he previously conducted in the UK.

A great deal of core players in the business analysis arena joined us for what was to be a very interesting evening. Our venue sponsor HP supplied logistics and drinks to welcome the attendees and around 19h00 IIBA Brussels Chapter president Stefan Bossuwé introduced the audience to the sponsors, the topic and the speaker for the evening.

Filip Hendrickx took the stand, sharpened his throat and explained his sharp vision and approach on lean strategy execution in a business analysis context loud and clear.

Since business stakeholders want projects to deliver fast they often come to the project team with a clear view of the solution, expecting a quick start and not leaving much room or time for challenging and proposing alternatives. However, Filip made clear, this mind set carries with it an important risk: blindly building the proposed solution does not guarantee business value.

People in a BA role (like business analysts and architects, but also product managers, process owners, customer journey managers and so on) often have the analytical skills and corporate overview to put the proposed solution in perspective and identify potential pitfalls hindering the proposed solution from delivering value. More importantly, they usually are well positioned in the organisation to connect the dots between the stakeholder’s goals and the solution implementation.

Filip elaborated on three key aspects of value creation for a BA role, effectively helping the BA make the shift from solution implementation to lean strategy execution:

• Pin down goals: When will the project be considered successful?
• Expose enablers: How will the proposed solution help achieve these goals?
• Identify and validate hypotheses: Are we really sure the proposed solution is the right one?

A lot of questions during and after the talk is a fine indicator that this topic lives amongst business analysts. Apparently everybody in this line of business has to do with the same challenges, but often in different disguises.

The conference room was left in favor of the lobby around 20h00 where the conversations went on during a network drink. Again we can look back on a very successful event.