News CenterAgile’s role in Ericsson’s software success
Ericsson’s emergence as one of the world’s largest software companies may be a surprise to some outside the telecoms industry. But software has been one of our success stories for many years – especially following a customer-focused transformation of software-development processes to increase customer responsiveness, reduce lead times and improve quality. The industry-recognized Agile approach has played a key role.
Gunnar Heldebro, Head of R&D at Ericsson’s Business Unit Multimedia, is one of the key drivers behind the transformation, which he describes as radical. He says the Agile approach plays an important role in fulfilling Ericsson’s end-to-end streamlined software-development objectives.
The vast majority of Ericsson’s Business Unit Multimedia’s portfolio is software-related. About 2,300 of the unit’s 2,850 R&D engineers work directly or indirectly with Agile practices.
“We are about five years into our overall software-transformation project now,” he says. “For me, Agile development is important because it is about empowering developers by creating an environment where they have control over their work.
“It’s about iterative, incremental development, close to the customer, with the ability to divide big tasks into smaller steps, related to a wanted position of some sort.”
Heldebro says Agile methodology easily adapts to rapid changes in the software market.
“It differs from the old sequential, so-called ‘waterfall’ approach, where the future was believed to be predictable and which resulted in long lead times, costly R&D and sometimes poor quality,” he says.
“The customer-focused approach of our new software practices, including Agile, is an important part of our vision of providing the best software services and products. We are not just using Agile because it exists. We are using it to enhance our Streamline Development Framework so we can provide customers with cutting-edge products and services.”
Heldebro says the Agile end-to-end approach involves working closely with customers the entire way through the development and delivery process.
He says there are many examples of Ericsson successfully applying the Agile end-to-end approach – such as delivering the Business Communication Suite (BCS) solution to Deutsche Telekom (DT).
“The direction was set through close interaction with DT’s marketing department, discussing their vision and wanted position of BCS towards its customers,” Heldebro says. “Once the development started, we met regularly to demo what had been agreed on, discuss progress and the next step. They are very pleased with the solution, which has now been launched in Germany, with plans to deploy it in other countries.
“Ericsson also learned a lot from working closely with DT throughout the process.”
Heldebro adds: “The way Ericsson applies Agile practices differs between product lines. Agile practices with close customer interaction are more prevalent when introducing new products, as well as implementing customer-specific requirements. But Agile is highly relevant for any type of development, also for standards-based products or when addressing a broader market.
“Most of Ericsson’s development organizations use Agile practices today in some form or another.”
Ericsson has also developed a methodology to judge the progress of the transformation across a range of factors. Feedback is used to further improve the process.
“We have seen a substantial improvement in the ratings for all of these factors,” Heldebro says. “Our customers are much happier with us today than when we started the program. We have extended the transformation process to try to better understand customer and market needs. This includes a lot of ongoing activities in the area of business architecture and business modeling, as well as user-experience-driven development.”
Gunnar Heldebro, Head of R&D at Ericsson’s Business Unit Multimedia, is one of the key drivers behind the transformation, which he describes as radical. He says the Agile approach plays an important role in fulfilling Ericsson’s end-to-end streamlined software-development objectives.
The vast majority of Ericsson’s Business Unit Multimedia’s portfolio is software-related. About 2,300 of the unit’s 2,850 R&D engineers work directly or indirectly with Agile practices.
“We are about five years into our overall software-transformation project now,” he says. “For me, Agile development is important because it is about empowering developers by creating an environment where they have control over their work.
“It’s about iterative, incremental development, close to the customer, with the ability to divide big tasks into smaller steps, related to a wanted position of some sort.”
Heldebro says Agile methodology easily adapts to rapid changes in the software market.
“It differs from the old sequential, so-called ‘waterfall’ approach, where the future was believed to be predictable and which resulted in long lead times, costly R&D and sometimes poor quality,” he says.
“The customer-focused approach of our new software practices, including Agile, is an important part of our vision of providing the best software services and products. We are not just using Agile because it exists. We are using it to enhance our Streamline Development Framework so we can provide customers with cutting-edge products and services.”
Heldebro says the Agile end-to-end approach involves working closely with customers the entire way through the development and delivery process.
He says there are many examples of Ericsson successfully applying the Agile end-to-end approach – such as delivering the Business Communication Suite (BCS) solution to Deutsche Telekom (DT).
“The direction was set through close interaction with DT’s marketing department, discussing their vision and wanted position of BCS towards its customers,” Heldebro says. “Once the development started, we met regularly to demo what had been agreed on, discuss progress and the next step. They are very pleased with the solution, which has now been launched in Germany, with plans to deploy it in other countries.
“Ericsson also learned a lot from working closely with DT throughout the process.”
Heldebro adds: “The way Ericsson applies Agile practices differs between product lines. Agile practices with close customer interaction are more prevalent when introducing new products, as well as implementing customer-specific requirements. But Agile is highly relevant for any type of development, also for standards-based products or when addressing a broader market.
“Most of Ericsson’s development organizations use Agile practices today in some form or another.”
Ericsson has also developed a methodology to judge the progress of the transformation across a range of factors. Feedback is used to further improve the process.
“We have seen a substantial improvement in the ratings for all of these factors,” Heldebro says. “Our customers are much happier with us today than when we started the program. We have extended the transformation process to try to better understand customer and market needs. This includes a lot of ongoing activities in the area of business architecture and business modeling, as well as user-experience-driven development.”
Posts
No comments: