A big part of Ericsson’s research and development is in the network management domain. Network Analytics & Management is a product development unit in Ericsson that develops and delivers management solutions to maximize the value of Ericsson Networks for our Customers.

In 2013, we set out to create a next generation management system using an Agile approach. Agile had been implemented in previous projects to varying degrees of success. This was an opportunity to apply all our learnings to a new green field project.

We started small by deploying a proof of concept in parallel with the legacy system. We learned a lot about the architectural needs and scaled the number of teams to 30. The project was on track and the system went live with a lead customer in trial phase.

Then came the corporate acknowledgment of the PDU’s success and a large budget was put in place to deliver to our customer’s needs faster. We analysed the situation internally and decided to stay small and build on the existing capabilities. However, weeks later we made a commitment to scaling our 30 team project to 120 teams in a period of 12 months.

Within nine months of growing to 120 teams, the project ground to a halt with major issues in deployment, architecture, development environment and project management skills. A one year delay was announced globally.

We took some time to retrospect and reflect on the mistakes we made. We put together a strategy to get the program back on its feet. We tackled the deployment issues, invested in our CI infrastructure, created a main track function and invested heavily in our project management capability across the program. We changed our approach to problem solving by tackling big problems in small chunks. Gradually we became more predictable and there was a more continuous flow of software through our system. Every now and then we experienced design stops due to quality issues but they were quickly resolved.

Today, after tackling all these issues, we’ve come out on top. We continue to be a program of 120 teams. We’re continuously delivering shipments every three weeks to our lead customers with best in class engineering practices and we’re structuring our organisation for mass rollout of the product.

We’re still on a journey. The better we get, the more obvious our deficiencies become. This presentation tells our story.

Paul Madden, Head of Product Development, Ericsson

Gerald Curran, Agile Line Manager, Ericsson