Abstract

When working in industry full time, a constant ambition is to be a reflective practitioner. Through continuous reflections it is possible to increase deep understanding of my profession, currently dedicated to improve product development (i.e. Software Process Improvement) at Ericsson. Doing so, I can create better results of my area of responsibilities. Serious reflections include areas such as problem and possibility definition, data collection, practice trials, data analysis and result presentation and deployment. A promising research approach for me to constantly learn, understand and improve is 'collaborative practice research' by Lars Mathiassen, which includes research methods like action research and case studies as well as the use of both insider and outsider researchers.

One key attribute of collaborative practice research is the close collaboration between industry practitioners (insiders) and academia researchers (outsiders). In most of the different studies, I have therefore chosen to involve or take part in studies where skilled practitioners and researchers are engaged and committed to both improve practice and publish the result of the study. Improving practice gives direct payback of the effort to the company, while publishing gives long term effects. Knowledge, which is published, is better understood, better explained and more formally accepted. Such knowledge helps us as a company to diffuse the knowledge as well as avoid falling back to previous and less beneficial behaviors.

Ericsson is global company acting at all continents in the world. Having papers published at conferences and in journals internationally known have helped improve the global acceptance. Very often within industry we argue that ‘this or that is only valid during certain circumstances in certain countries or even cities’. The international publications remove some of these barriers.

I have chosen to pay attention to mainly two overall areas: software process improvement and collaborative practice research (my PhD was mainly dedicated to the first). Software process improvement (or more generally improving product development) is my key area of responsibility at Ericsson, while I see collaborative practice research as an enabler to execute my responsibility.

Today I am initiating and proposing different collaborative research studies where I have practices that I believe we benefit from improving at Ericsson. It is often a challenge to manage the speedy time lines set-up within the industry improvement projects, while at the same time finding skilled researchers (and funding) that are willing to engage in the project. I am however convinced that more and closer collaboration between industry and academia will improve our product development practices at Ericsson as well as providing more insightful publications. Therefore, it is and will be a natural way for me to continue working as a researcher within industry together with researchers within academia. It is all about data access in different contexts and the knowledge to make sense of this. Together, industry- and academia researchers have the opportunity to manage both the access and the sense-making.

In this 1h Docent Lecture I describe the research I have taken part in between 2006 – 2012 in an easy-to-understand way with high focus on ‘solving industry problems’.