Think Like A Grandmaster

“Chess helps you to concentrate, improve your logic. It teaches you to play by the rules and take responsibility for your actions, how to problem solve in an uncertain environment.”

Garry Kasparov

Dmitri Bountsman is a chess Grandmaster, software architect and entrepreneur based in Stuttgart, Germany. Born in the ex-Soviet Union, his family moved to Germany when he was 9 years old. Learning chess helped him overcome language barriers and becoming an International Grand Master opened a new perspective on what is possible, forever changing his own perception on success. He participated to World and European Chess Championship. He was ranked 97th in world chess ranking and 3rd in Germany, aged 17.

Two years later he decided to study IT and worked as a software developer and software architect. Dmitri led the entire software architecture in a project which required 960,000 man-hours to complete, creating a viable ecosystem and the solutions which allowed the organization operates and thrive.

IT is his main passion and his strategic thinking opens new opportunities for other businesses he runs together with his wife, Florence, a chess champion too! In the last decade they invested in real estate in an exclusive part of Germany, in Stuttgart, and developed a rental property portfolio that they manage.

A strategic mind, Dmitri opened is also the head of IMN Stuttgart, were they help to connect like minded business owners and entrepreneurs with a growing international community.

What inspired you to create your business?

From my point of view, for successful development of a piece of software, IT people have to understand the business they are working in and consult other departments of the same project. Successful business decisions of senior management need to be supported by control of own IT.

All these years I worked as an IT architect, in any company I worked with, same problems are always present. I speak about companies where IT is not the primary business. There are of course technical issues but there are also communications and mindset problems,on different levels. Often the IT is seen at a kind of “necessary evil” and software developers as coders.

I decided to help companies gain control over IT, keep it, save a lot of money and accelerate their business growth. My goal is to change IT from “necessary evil” to a strength that makes the difference.

What problems are you solving?

I solve the problems of high IT-costs and especially slow IT-implementations of necessary business changes. After my work is done, my client will have the control over its own IT system. The IT department (or whatever the structure is) will be able to consult on business changes and give correct estimation for time and schedule of any change.

How does it work?

I come into my client’s organization as part of the team, and depending on organization size, I spent between 3 and 15 days to analyse the situation and find out what can be improved and where the problems are. Then, I offer to the company three different packages: •The first is where I come in for a project, resolve the problems, make workshops and finally give the results over. •The second is like the first plus at instead of leaving I stay and consult for a period of time until the organisation found necessary staff to replace me. •The third is like the first plus I search for my replacement myself. That can be that the necessary people are already at the company but it can be that I will have to search on the market. Most likely it will be the mix of both. Finally I train my replacement before I leave.

Who are the people who could benefit?

I work with companies that do not see IT as their primary business,but have minimum 100 employees. Both the company and its employees benefit in more ways than one. The senior management will get control of IT costs and schedule of changes of future development. The specialist departments will finally see results instead of hearing “that’s not possible”. The software development will have more fun developing new feature instead of being upset about never ending meetings without results.

What are the challenges to make the public aware of your work?

The most common challenges are concerning the mindset and the limiting belief that it is not possible to have a control over IT and it’s cost.

Here are some common indicators that show that my service is required:

•Managers think that it is better not to change too much in IT, because every change is a risk -“do not change the running system”. Well, who does not evolve will not survive

•Managers fell into a common trap of “saving money” off shore instead of investing in the company.

•Adjusting to Frameworks and systems even when they are not a good fit.

•Having to many meetings without result

•Having huge performance problems

•Takeover of competitors and merging two different systems

•Trying to solve problems with different development processes like SCRUM

It can be frustrating see that most companies and organizations have the same issues and no one seems to know that these problems even exist. What I really want is to help these companies take back control of their IT and make it the difference over their competition. My goal is to streamline your organisation’s IT infrastructure so that you are able to change your processes depending on your needs, rather than changing your needs to fit your processes and who knows with my help you may be taking over competitors (without having to spend years merging your 2 infrastructures together). The organizations should be able to change their processes depending on business requirements and not because that’s the IT limitation.

Being inspired by Garry Kasparov, Dmitri looks at life with an open mind and focus on problem solving. Connect with him to find best solution for your challenges.