Increasing Agility in Software Development

Francis Bordeleau, professor in the Department of Software Engineering and Information Technology (IT) at ÉTS

Professor Bordeleau, a member of the Department of Software Engineering and Information Technology (IT), is an expert in software and model-based engineering. For four years, he was responsible for the development of model-based tools with the central IT group at Ericsson. He also led the establishment a consortium around the Eclipse Papyrus modeling tool.

Driven by the desire to be in business, Francis Bordeleau also founded two companies in Gatineau: Zeligsoft in 2002 and Cmind in 2017. Zeligsoft develops model-based engineering solutions for component-based systems, and Cmind provides open source solutions based on Eclipse Papyrus.

Francis Bordeleau is an expert in improving development process, methods, and tools in software and system engineering. “Before, systems were closed and developed in isolation,” he explains. Today, they no longer evolve alone, but within a system of systems. The question is then: How to build these systems to ensure their continuous improvement, enable integration with other systems, making them adaptable to different environments, deployable in the cloud, etc. In practice, his task is to develop process, methods, and tools to increase the quality of systems and the productivity of development teams while reducing costs.

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Knowledge Sharing

Throughout his journey, Francis Bordeleau acquired extensive expertise in the field of open source software. Convinced there is a need for more agility in technology, he was actively involved in this area that makes it possible for companies to develop custom solutions and to take advantage of improvements made by the user community.

A professor at Carleton University for a decade, he is passionate about sharing his experience with the younger generation. If he chose to teach at ÉTS, it is because learning is rooted in its reality and applied research, and collaboration with companies are at the core of the school’s mission. “Working with companies is very important to me. Working in software engineering at a theoretical level, without industrial validation, is useless. I want to do software engineering for industry,” says Francis Bordeleau.

Professor Bordeleau has been tasked with setting up a research chair connected to the business world to help organizations develop and improve their methods and tools. A whole new way of working needs to be established. And at its core: agility. Teams must learn to conduct iterative, team-based projects, and to continually adapt to technological change.

Francis Bordeleau will bring to students and ÉTS his technical skills, his business experience and his ability to mobilize communities on projects, as he did with the Eclipse Papyrus industrial consortium.