Meet a Technology Black Belt: Alejandro Danylyszyn |
A Technology Black Belt is our ‘go to’ authority for knowledge on a particular domain topic. You last met Tony Bright when he discussed his perspectives on SAP Upgrades. Today, we meet Alejandro Danylyszyn, our resident authority on Agile Development. We caught up with him recently to see what he’s been up to.
What do you do at Deloitte?
I’m a Principal in our Deloitte Digital service line focusing on web and mobile solutions for Media & Entertainment clients. I’m the Regional Service Line Leader for Deloitte Digital in the West, and the sector lead for Media & Entertainment within Deloitte Digital. In addition, I lead the Agile Community of Practice (COP), coordinating efforts across multiple service lines to compile leading agile practices across engagements, host monthly learning webinars, share sample deliverables and templates, and launch our newest method: EVD for Agile.
What’s the most exciting part of your job?
Helping clients solve complex business challenges and make smart investments while taking advantage of leading-edge technology. Our agile approach to managing engagements helps clients make decisions based on value delivered – learning from each iteration and adapting quickly to changing business needs and technology capabilities.
What are some tech accessories you travel with?
My laptop, smart phone and tablet…and quite a few chargers and battery packs.
Rapid-Fire:
- East or west coast? West
- Coffee or Tea? Coffee
- Favorite dish? Ukrainian varenyky
- Must-watch movie? “The Hobbit”
- Last book you read? “Ficciones” by Jorge Luis Borges
What do you feel are some of the key agile development challenges that CIOs face today?
A lot of CIOs are struggling with agile adoption: they recognize the value of agile techniques but don’t know how to get started. They have large organizations with geographically dispersed teams, in-flight long-term projects, processes and metrics that don’t favor agility, etc. We help those CIOs by sharing our point of view, assisting with organizational change management and driving adoption through our engagements.
Most interesting place you’ve traveled to?
Tough question, since I love travelling to interesting places. I’m very interested in history, astronomy and engineering – so I’d say that Athens, Greece qualifies as the most interesting place, bringing together all three of my personal passions. In 2011 I had the opportunity to see the Antikythera mechanism at the National Archaeological Museum – a 2,100 year old mechanical astronomical computer, an engineering and scientific marvel.
Remember when we all thought we’d be in flying cars by now? Well, describe to us your “flying car future” prediction:
Well… The first flying car prototypes were introduced 50 years ago, and were subsequently abandoned for not being economically viable. Today, several private companies are working on flying cars but they have to contend with many challenges around air traffic control and regulation, not to mention the persisting economic challenges.
I envision an agile future: technology will continue to evolve and new, empirical, unforeseen and unpredicted applications will surface based on the value they create for individuals and society. Mobile enablement, miniaturization of chips and devices, cloud-based solutions, virtual social communities and big data analytics are driving innovative solutions every day.
Question you wished we’d asked?
How are we adopting agile development within Deloitte?
Want to learn more?
Want to learn more about what Alejandro is doing? Connect with him on LinkedIn to obtain recent thoughtware on Agility at scale: Operationalizing Scrum in a distributed environment.
