Get to Know Kanban Fellows:
Dragos Dumitriu, Dimitar Karaivanov, and Frank Vega
It has been our pleasure to celebrate the 17 inaugural Kanban University Distinguished Fellows for 2021. We are sharing our final three interviews with Kanban University Chairman Todd Little below.
Watch and learn how Dragos, Dimitar and Frank got started with Kanban, their contributions to the community, and how they have seen it evolve over the past 10 years.
What do you value most about the Kanban community?
“Every time I would go to a conference I would learn something new. We’re all learning and it’s continuous learning. However, I want to differentiate the learning from teaching. Nobody was coming to teach. People were coming to share – to share experiences, to share results, and we all learned. You go to a lot of other conferences and someone is trying to teach you. There’s a bunch of pedantic pontificators out there and they never have any results to show. In this community, people come to talk about results, to talk about their case studies.”
Dragos Dumitriu
Lean Champion at Adobe
How have you seen Kanban and the Kanban community evolve over the past 10 years?
“It has been quite a ride. One thing that I always appreciated about the community is that we get so many brilliant people that always contribute more and more to complete the body of knowledge of Kanban. 10 years ago, 11 year ago, it wasn’t where it is today and I think a great deal of this achievement should be contributed to the community. Kanban University is definitely a trusted partner for us and we will do whatever we can to help you guys grow.”
Dimitar Karaivanov
CEO and co-founder of Kanbanize
What do you value most about the Kanban community?
“It’s the amount of openness and sharing that I see from many of the folks that appear at the conferences, not just in the U.S. but globally. I know that I can ping someone on LinkedIn or reach out to them via email and they’ll share their insights and experiences. For me it’s been very helpful to have that, especially when you work as an independent consultant on your own and not part of an organization on a day-to-day or month-to-month basis.”
Frank Vega
President/CEO of Vega Information System Services, Inc.
