Off the Deck

What if the biggest risk in your 2027 technology budget isn't what you're spending, but what you're assuming?

In this episode of Off the Deck, host Jayme MacQueen sits down with Ben Cole, Principal Consultant at Hylaine, to challenge the assumptions driving technology budgets and investment decisions. From overlooked costs and misaligned priorities to AI's growing impact on spending, they explore when to trust an estimate, when to test it, and how to prioritize investments that deliver measurable ROI.

Before you commit to next year's budget, make sure the numbers can stand up to scrutiny.

Just because the business asks for a new data solution doesn't mean it should be built.

In this episode of *Off the Deck*, host Jayme MacQueen joins Ryan McElroy, VP of Technology, and Ryan Robbins, Principal Consultant of Data Intelligence, to challenge how technology leaders evaluate business requests. They explore the tension between delivering what stakeholders ask for and solving what the business actually needs, from data reliability and feasibility to long-term ownership.

When is saying no the smartest move, and when does it create more problems than it solves? Tune in for a candid conversation about making better technology decisions and building solutions that deliver real business value.

When a year-end project falls behind, should you cut scope to meet the deadline or push the delivery date?

As Q4 deadlines approach, project leaders face mounting pressure to deliver results while navigating holiday schedules, reduced team capacity, and shifting priorities. Making the right call requires more than tracking timelines. It takes realistic planning, clear communication, and a focus on business outcomes.

In this episode of Off The Deck, host Jayme MacQueen sits down with Hylaine Directors of Client Delivery Meredith Martinez and Chris Langlois to discuss the challenges of year-end project delivery and how leaders can make smarter decisions when plans go off track.

In this episode, you'll learn:

Meredith and Chris share practical insights on navigating tough project decisions, managing delivery risks, and keeping teams aligned when timelines get tight.

Because successful project delivery isn't just about meeting deadlines. It's about making the right decisions to deliver meaningful results.

Tune in to learn how experienced delivery leaders approach year-end challenges and keep projects focused on what matters most.

Meredith Martinez is Director of Client Delivery, Hylaine

A values-first technology consulting firm. She brings a practical, results-focused approach to project delivery, helping teams navigate complex timelines, manage risks, and align priorities with business objectives. With an emphasis on proactive planning, transparent communication, and strong client partnerships, Meredith is focused on delivering meaningful outcomes without compromising quality.

Christopher Langlois is Director of Client Delivery, Hylaine

A values-first technology consulting firm. He brings a practical, solutions-focused approach to project delivery, helping teams navigate complex challenges, manage risks, and make informed decisions that align with business priorities. With an emphasis on strategic planning, transparent communication, and strong client partnerships, Christopher is committed to delivering quality outcomes that create lasting business value.

Is your legacy application holding your business back? And how do you know when it's time to fix what you have or start over?

Every technology leader has encountered an application that's slow, difficult to maintain, and increasingly expensive to support. But deciding whether to refactor an existing system or invest in a complete rewrite isn't always straightforward. Making the wrong call can lead to wasted resources, unnecessary complexity, and business disruption.

In this episode of Off the Deck, host Jayme MacQueen, Hylaine's Director of Marketing and Brand, sits down with Brian Justice, Director of Technical Delivery, to discuss the realities of legacy application modernization and the critical factors technology leaders need to evaluate before making major technology investments.

Drawing on his experience across banking, insurance, healthcare, and life sciences, Brian shares practical perspectives on identifying modernization opportunities, managing technical debt, and balancing business needs with technical realities.

For CIOs, CTOs, and enterprise IT leaders, legacy application modernization is more than a technical decision. It's a business decision that affects operational efficiency, technology investments, and an organization's ability to adapt to changing demands.

A complete rewrite may seem like the simplest solution to years of accumulated technical challenges, but starting over doesn't automatically eliminate complexity. Likewise, continuing to maintain outdated systems without a clear strategy can create additional costs and limitations.

The challenge is knowing which approach delivers the greatest long-term value while minimizing unnecessary risk.

The key takeaway: Successful application modernization isn't about replacing technology for the sake of change. It's about understanding what the business needs, evaluating the available options, and choosing a practical path forward.

Listen to this episode of Off the Deck as Jayme and Brian unpack the trade-offs behind refactoring versus rewriting, share insights from complex enterprise environments, and explore how technology leaders can make smarter modernization decisions that support long-term business goals.

Brian Justice, Director of Technical Delivery, Hylaine

When legacy technology starts slowing innovation, making the right modernization decision becomes critical. In this episode of Off the Deck, we welcome Brian Justice, Hylaine's Director of Technical Delivery, to share his insights on navigating complex technology challenges.

With extensive experience across banking, insurance, healthcare, and life sciences, Brian helps organizations evaluate legacy systems, address technical debt, and make informed modernization decisions that balance business priorities, operational risks, and long-term value.

Every AI vendor has a benchmark chart. Somehow, their model always seems to come out on top.

But for enterprise leaders, the real question is not which model ranks first. It is which model is right for the work you actually need to do.

In this episode of Off the Deck, Jayme MacQueen sits down with Kevin McDonald, Principal Consultant in Hylaine’s Data Intelligence practice, to unpack how organizations should think about AI model selection, cost, performance, and business value.

Kevin explains why the most powerful model is not automatically the best choice. In many cases, using a frontier model for a straightforward task is like bringing a sledgehammer to a nail. It may get the job done, but with more cost and complexity than the work actually requires.

The conversation moves from theory to practice with a real insurance engagement where Hylaine matched different AI models to different parts of the workflow. The result showed why model selection matters: a more advanced model could have cost roughly 10 times more to perform work that a less expensive model could handle just as effectively, and faster.

The takeaway: there is no universal “best” AI model. The smarter approach is to understand the workload, evaluate what the business actually needs, and apply AI with precision rather than defaulting to the biggest tool available.

Listen to the full episode of Off the Deck for a practical conversation about making better AI decisions without adding unnecessary cost, complexity, or hype.

Kevin McDonald is a Principal Consultant in Hylaine’s Data Intelligence practice, where he helps organizations apply data and AI to real business problems with a practical, outcome-focused approach. Based in Charlotte, Kevin has been with Hylaine for more than five years and has worked across manufacturing, insurance, life sciences, healthcare, and professional services.

His work focuses on helping clients make smarter technology decisions, including how to match the right AI models and tools to the task, balance cost and performance, and avoid unnecessary complexity. Kevin brings a hands-on perspective to AI strategy, grounded in what works in real enterprise environments rather than what looks best on a benchmark chart.

Projects rarely fail when the deadline arrives. They fail much earlier, when assumptions replace understanding.

In this episode of Off the Deck, Chris Ragan, Senior Consultant in Application Development at Hylaine, shares why the most important work often happens before the project officially begins. With more than five years at Hylaine leading delivery for one of the company’s first and longest-standing clients, Chris has seen firsthand how early discovery, stakeholder alignment, and ownership can determine whether an engagement succeeds or struggles.

Chris and Jayme explore why long-standing client relationships can make discovery even more important, not less. Trust and familiarity are valuable, but they can also create assumptions about who owns decisions, what success looks like, and which voices need to be part of the conversation. The biggest warning sign? A key stakeholder responsible for the outcome who is not in the room.

The conversation also dives into Hylaine Phase Zero, a discovery approach designed to uncover the facts, priorities, and challenges that shape successful delivery. Chris explains why investing time upfront is always less costly than uncovering missed details halfway through an engagement, and why doing the right work starts with understanding the right problem.

Plus, Chris shares how AI is changing how teams approach delivery, why faster access to information doesn't replace human judgment, and why strong partnerships still depend on asking better questions.

In this episode:

At Hylaine, we believe partnerships over transactions means taking the time to understand our clients, their goals, and the people who will ultimately define success.

Chris Ragan is a Senior Consultant in Hylaine’s Application Development practice with more than five years at Hylaine. He leads a large delivery team supporting one of Hylaine’s first and longest-standing clients, helping drive successful outcomes through strong technical delivery, stakeholder alignment, and partnership. With experience across insurance, banking, and other industries, Chris brings a practical understanding of the challenges organizations face when modernizing technology and delivering meaningful solutions. 

The work that makes great consulting possible often happens long before a client sees the final outcome. It happens behind the scenes, in the systems, relationships, and culture that support the people doing the work.

For India Monroe, that is exactly where the focus belongs. As Hylaine’s HR leader and culture expert, India spends her time building the foundation that helps teams succeed, from employee engagement and connection to creating an environment where people feel supported, equipped, and empowered to deliver for clients.

India joins Jayme MacQueen to talk about the role of people and culture in a technology consulting firm, why HR is about much more than policies and processes, and how a strong employee experience ultimately shapes the client experience. She also shares her unconventional career path from motorsports to consulting, what remote work taught her about building connection, and why understanding people is at the center of everything she does.

Also in this episode: why the best cultures are built intentionally, the importance of listening to employees, and how the work behind the scenes helps Hylaine live its values of partnership, transparency, and doing what’s right.

India Monroe is Hylaine’s HR Leader based in Raleigh, North Carolina, where she focuses on building a strong employee experience and supporting the people behind Hylaine’s client success. With a background spanning multiple industries, including motorsports, India brings a unique perspective on connection, engagement, and the importance of creating a culture where teams can thrive.

At Hylaine, India helps strengthen the systems and relationships that enable employees to do their best work, ensuring that the people behind the technology solutions are supported, connected, and equipped for success.

Agreement is everybody thinking the same thing. Alignment is going with the best plan available and owning the outcome, good or bad. Jonathan Meek builds most of what he does on that distinction, because ownership is the only thing that decides whether the work survives the day he leaves.

It shows up in an unusual place. About six months into a year-long engagement, he usually gets a job offer from the client. He has said no 10 out of 10 times, and he does not take it as a compliment. He takes it as information: if a client is trying to hire the consultant, nobody internal was ever named to take the work over, and the handoff is going to happen in the last 60 days instead of the first 60.

Jonathan is a Principal Architect at Hylaine with nearly 20 years in the field. Jayme MacQueen asks him what he does in the first three weeks of an engagement that makes a client start treating him like a leader, how he gets a client to own a solution instead of agreeing to one, and what has to be true on day one for that solution to outlast him.

Also in this episode: the mentor who told him he talks long enough to talk people out of his own ideas, and why he thinks AI is an amplifier rather than a replacement.

What do you do when a critical program has already burned through 60% of its budget, missed every major date, and everyone is watching to see what happens next? Starting over can feel like the cleanest answer. But a restart does not erase the problems that got the program there. It can reset the timeline, reopen old decisions, and cost something even harder to recover: stakeholder trust.

In this episode of Off the Deck, Jayme MacQueen sits down with Hylaine Director of Client Delivery Chris Langlois to unpack what it really takes to rescue a troubled program. Drawing on more than 20 years in technology consulting and nearly a decade bringing complex banking programs to the finish line, Chris shares why the first move is not to build a new roadmap. It is to understand what is salvageable, stabilize execution, and restore confidence. They explore how to make the hard call between saving and scrapping a program, why visible progress matters, and how trust, communication, and other human skills can ultimately determine whether a turnaround succeeds.

At Hylaine, doing what’s right over what’s easy means tackling hard problems without defaulting to the most convenient answer. If you lead complex technology programs, especially in high-stakes, regulated environments, this conversation offers a practical perspective on what to do when the plan has gone sideways but the outcome still matters. Listen to the full episode of Off the Deck to hear how experienced delivery leaders turn troubled programs into forward momentum.

Chris Langlois is Director of Client Delivery at Hylaine. He has spent more than 20 years in technology consulting and close to a decade bringing banking programs to the finish line, usually after being dropped into them mid-flight. He has a specific and unpopular opinion about what starting over actually costs.

AI rollouts don't fail because the technology doesn't work. They fail because nobody was actually accountable for making people use it. This week, Jayme sits down with Alex Grawe, Hylaine's transformation and organizational change lead, to argue out one question every leadership team is quietly avoiding: when AI adoption stalls, is that IT's problem to fix, or the business's?