Software development is a societal sport with Hendrik Esser

In this conversation, Hendrik Esser, a senior leader at Ericsson, shares his thoughts related toHis love to construct stuff, even as a kid, to make stuff that others can useStarting to play games with his friend and then writing gamesPreferring electrical engineering, as the feeling was that computer science is just programming and he already knew that!Then, learning communication protocols and getting closer to softwareHis understanding of software work as art and the importance of craftsmanshipThe need to develop one’s talent into masteryAnd how with mastery you can be an engineerAnd one more level is to become an artist, when you transcend what you have learnt and move to express yourself creativelyHow he would like to use his artistry to make the world a better placeHow he got interested in the people aspects of software development, as work happens in teamsApplying for a group manager position, when had about 1.5 years of experience and the career advice he got, that he considers as one of the best he has receivedThe transition from game development to telecom softwareAbout programming by indirect observationHow understanding the purpose of a program gives him the motivation to solveFrom working on standalone machines where one has full visibility and control over everything that happens to working in teams and cloud based environments where most things are only indirectly feltFrom team sport, software development has become a societal sportHow, working in a multicultural team has helped understand that people are the same across the worldHow to treat a disturbance as an invitation for learningUsing curiosity to understand and explore other culturesHow a cross-national team worked on a very tricky technical problem and cracked it in 2 daysThe effectiveness of getting everyone into one room for richer interactions and the impact of the forced dispersal mode His interest in actively participating in communities and what he derives from such interactions and contributionsHow to reconcile the need for experimentation and progressive evolution approaches inspired by agile principles and the corporate expectations to be very predictable from the beginningHow to predict in an unpredictable worldUsing ranges, rather than precise dates, as leading indicators to track projectsHis career advice - develop social skills in addition to technical skillsHendrik Esser is a senior transformation expert, coach, driver and catalyst with more than 20 years of leadership experience at Ericsson. He is also internationally active in communities advancing business agility across industries.Hendrik is continuously exploring new ways to create better results and greater organizations.That journey started when he joined Ericsson in Germany in 1994 as a SW developer. Soon his passion brought him to a leadership career from being a Technical Coordinator through project management, project office management, portfolio- and technology management towards being the "COO" of one of Ericsson's large, internationally distributed development units with over 8000 people. In 2008 he was a key driver to the agile transition of a large organization. Through this engagement he became a recognized and sought expert not only in the Ericsson enterprise transformation, but also a strong contributor to the international agile community, exchanging and expanding knowledge and spreading agile mindset and ideas across industries. Part of his time he also works as a trainer for leadership programs within Ericsson.In parallel to his work at Ericsson, he is - as a volunteer - Program Director of the Agile Alliance's initiative "Supporting Agile Adoption". He has worked together with ICAgile on Learning Roadmaps for agile Finance. Also, he is an internationally active speaker at numerous conferences and company events on agile product development, HR and project management.LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/hendrik-esser