Teaching Software Project Management Research Articles

Balancing enjoyment and learning in teaching software project management with game-based learning

Despite advancements in project management education, project failures remain common, often due to insufficient experience and skills. Games offer a valuable platform for teaching practical project management skills, allowing players to learn from mistakes without significant economic costs. However, many serious games in this field lack focus on engagement and motivation. The "Software Project Management Game" introduced in this article addresses these issues by incorporating motivational game design principles, drawing inspiration from entertainment games like Game Dev Tycoon and The Sims. The game ensures a smooth flow without unnecessary interruptions, putting players in control. Players progress through five projects of increasing complexity, gradually developing their skills and learning soft skills and task dependencies. This article details the design, implementation, and evaluation of the game, focusing on gameflow, intrinsic motivation, perceived learning, and usability. The results indicate that the game successfully balances enjoyment and learning, making it an effective tool for teaching core project management skills.

Applying Lean to Improve Software Project Management Education

This article describes how different Lean principles and techniques have been adapted and applied to identify, analyze, and improve the value chain of a Software Project Management module in a computer science curriculum. This research is part of an initiative to improve the processes related to higher education teaching management, at a university, with the main goal of maximizing the value that is provided to students when taking a module. To represent and visualize the whole value chain of the module, the value stream mapping Lean management tool has been used. The essential module activities and the necessary elements to teach each one of these activities, from the first session to the final mark, were detected, collected, and represented using diagrams. The value chain analysis and review were performed by applying Lean principles and techniques. This article details several improvements to be applied to the module to eliminate the waste that did not add value to students.

Software Project Management Education: A Systematic Review

Software project management (SPM) is a significant field, related to the discipline of software engineering, which has attracted a huge number of researchers and practitioners in recent years. The role of software project management education (SPME) is essential to instill appropriate competencies in SPM students so that they could be able to deliver effectively in the software industry as SPM professionals. As the demand of SPM professionals is continuously increasing, the responsibilities of academia have also been increased to ensure and provide the solid basis and quality education to SPM. In this context, a number of methods and tools have been deliberated to examine SPME from various dimensions. The usefulness of these methods and tools need to be synthesized and evaluated to investigate the areas that could be used to improve the various aspects of SPME. The main objective of this research is to evaluate the techniques that have been applied to teach SPME and identify the future directions that could lead to make improvements in SPME. This article presents a review of eighty-nine research papers of SPME that have been classified and synthesized according to different aspects of SPME. These aspects include type and approach of conducted research, empirical type, SPM knowledge areas, and curricula. The principal findings emerged after analyzing the results of reviewing the SPME research have been discussed in detail. Lastly, a list of advice to SPM instructors, based on the prominent and effective practices of SPME, has also been presented in this study.

Practitioners’ Perspective on Software Project Management Education

Despite Software project management (SPM) being one of the most relevant topicsin the area of software engineering that should be addressed in computing programs, SPM skills of recent graduates are not satisfactory yet. In this context, besides being important to know there are skill deficiencies, we also need to gather specific information on how to adjust and improve the education on the corresponding topics. In this paper we attempt to identify what knowledge deficiencies in SPM can persist after a student graduates from a computing degree program. We surveyed practitioners that graduated and worked as software project managers to gather the knowledge deficiencies from the industry perspective. In general, the results indicated that there is a number of professionals who seeks postgraduate programs to fill the deficiencies of the undergrad programs.

Effectiveness of Games in Software Project Management Education: An Experimental Study

Effectiveness of Games in Software Project Management Education: An Experimental Study

Designing game scenarios for software project management education and assessment

In recent years, an increasing interest has been observed in the development and use of simulations, serious games (SGs) and gamification strategies to teach software project management (SPM) in a highly practical way. The current SGs for SPM have a quite specific scope, are not able to provide and dynamically change game scenarios during the life of the SG and do not allow teachers to assess students' new skills automatically. These weaknesses led to the development of ProDec, a simulation-based SG that is able to incorporate SPM real-life practice. In this study, the authors discuss the use of SGs in SPM education before they describe ProDecAdmin, the game scenario design tool for ProDec. ProDecAdmin provides teachers with an environment for designing the game scenarios for ProDec. Additionally, it helps teachers establish the assessment criteria to automate the students' assessment during the game plays. These functionalities allow ProDec to offer students any game scenario that teachers design and to assess their performance in them. Hence, the tool ProDecAdmin helps the SG ProDec to overcome the lack of flexibility and automatic assessment identified in the current SGs for SPM. This study also outlines the results of the usability evaluation conducted.

Avaliação do jogo SIMULES no apoio ao ensino e aprendizagem de Engenharia de Software

One of the causes of bad software planning is the lack of qualified professionals and that in order to improve their quality it is necessary to improve the quality of teaching in the Software Engineering area. Educational games present themselves as a promising alternative as a method of teaching support, since they are able to teach while they entertain, motivating the student to learn, however, there is still a need to evaluate the real benefits of this didactic resource. Thus, this work evaluated qualitatively and quantitatively the game SimulES (Software Engineering Simulator), an educational cards game that simulates the software process development. Applying it to Computer Engineering students at UNIVASF in the Software Engineering II discipline, with the purpose of inferring its effectiveness in teaching software project management. The application of the game was done with 22 students in the semester of 2017.1 and to measure the quality of learning obtained through the game was applied a questionnaire that uses Kirkpatrick reaction concepts, ARCS Model, User Experience in Games and BLOOM Taxonomy. The result of the analysis by t Student test showed that the game's activities are fun, enjoyable and challenging, as well as being able to motivate students to learn software project management and contribute to learning that content.

An Instructional Feedback Technique for Teaching Project Management Tools Aligned With PMBOK

Contribution: An approach is presented to provide contextualized feedback for students using a project management (PM) tool. This approach covers the ten PM knowledge areas, guiding students through the planning of software projects. Background: Because software PM is unfeasible without the support of a PM tool there is a growing demand that these tools be taught in the higher education computer courses. Hence, several approaches already have been proposed to improve this teaching, such as educational PM tools or simulators, which facilitate the application of specific PM techniques and the treatment of their results. Another approach to improve the teaching of PM tools is instructional feedback, but little information is as yet available on how to provide instructional feedback when teaching software PM. Intended Outcomes: Instructional feedback, essential to helping students to learn, is based on an evaluation of their actions and decisions. To take advantage of this instructional approach, this paper proposes an instructional feedback technique to be employed in an instructional unit (IU) teaching PM tools aligned with the project management body of knowledge. Application Design: This technique was evaluated through an experiment carried out in undergraduate computer courses. Control and experiential groups were exposed to the same IU, with only the experiential group using the instructional feedback technique. Findings: The proposed feedback technique contributes to student learning, meeting students’ need for better explanations to acquire a comprehensive understanding of PM theory and its practice.

Software Engineering Management Education through Game Design Patterns

Abstract Software engineering (SE) is an area with a wide range of concepts and knowledge. Such diversity of topics, requires the application of different teaching and learning techniques for an effective education. Serious Games is one of such techniques, yet its design tends to be complex, currently lacking a map of game design standards that comply with SE education requirements. This paper presents a process to identify the game design patterns that can be effective for teaching software engineering, specifically the software project management topic. Firstly, it begins by identifying the relationship between game design patterns and teaching and learning functions based on literature review. Secondly, it filters which of those teaching and learning functions is most relevant to software project management education, according to SE education specialists. Finally, it validates the relationship between game design patterns and software project management education through an empirical study conducted with master students. The results can be used as a basis for designing and developing serious games for teaching software project management.

Multi-Role Project (MRP): A New Project-Based Learning Method for STEM

This paper presents the “Multi-Role Project” method (MRP), a broadly applicable project-based learning method, and describes its implementation and evaluation in the context of a Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) course. The MRP method is designed around a meta-principle that considers the project learning activity as a role-playing game based on two projects: a learning project and an engineering project. The meta-principle is complemented by five principles that provide a framework to guide the working practices of student teams: distribution of responsibilities; regular interactions and solicitations within the team; anticipation and continuous improvement; positive interdependence and alternating individual/collective work; and open communication and content management. This paper presents the implementation of MRP in a course teaching software engineering, UML language, and project management. The results show that MRP helped the course's students to acquire important professional knowledge and skills, experience near-real-world professional realities, and develop their abilities to work both in teams and autonomously.

An Exploratory Study of Game-based M-learning for Software Project Management

Given that the virtues of m-learning have not yet been fully exploited in teaching Software Project Management (SPM), this paper embarks on a timely endeavour to explore the use of game-based m-learning for SPM by introducing a game called Mobile Application for Project management LEarning (MAPLE). A total of 55 graduate students were invited to participate in the evaluation study carried out for the MAPLE application. The evaluation was based on three design principles derived from the literature, namely, motivation, gaming and learning. Based on the preliminary evaluation, three major observations could be culled. One, game-based m-learning is a useful and an entertaining augmentation to traditional learning. Two, design principles namely motivation, gaming and learning and their appropriate blending is necessary to develop an effective m-learning game. Finally, appealing features in MAPLE are risk alerts, avatar creation and feedback.

Shall We Play a Game?

This paper presents the results of a qualitative research project that used a simple game of a software project to see if and how games could contribute to better software project management education, and, if so, what features would make them most efficacious. The results suggest that while games are useful pedagogical tools and are well-received by players, they are not sufficient in themselves and must be supplemented by other learning devices.

Teaching Software Engineering Project Management – A Novel Approach for Software Engineering Programs

In response to real and perceived short-comings in the quality and productivity of software engineering practices and projects, professionally-endorsed graduate and post-graduate curriculum guides have been developed to meet technical developments and evolving industry demands. Each of these curriculum guidelines identifies better software project management skills as critical for all graduating students, but they provide little guidance on how to achieve this. One possible way is to use a serious game — a game designed to teach and educate players about some of the dynamic complexities of the field in a safe and inexpensive environment. This paper presents the results of a qualitative research project that used a simple game of a software project to see if and how games could contribute to better software project management education. Initial results suggest that suitably-designed games are able to teach software engineering and project management concepts at higher-order Bloom taxonomy levels.

The Frog and the Octopus—Experience Teaching Software Project Management

How do you teach software project management to 4th year engineering students, when there is nothing to manage, and the largest project they’ve ever experienced was with two buddies last term? In this paper, we present our experience over seven years teaching this topic alternatively to industrial practitioners, and to undergraduate and graduate students in an academic environment, both in Canada and in the Netherlands. The approach is based on a conceptual model of software development that takes into account the common aspects across a vast spectrum of software projects (“the frog”): intent, product, work, people, time, uncertainty, quality cost and value, and the variability across this spectrum (“the octopus”): size, criticality, business model, governance, team distribution, culture, etc.. This conceptual model is used throughout to (1) structure the course, (2) introduce issues, techniques, practices, and analyze them from a critical perspective: what would the frog say? what would the octopus say? (3) map other models, frameworks, or standards in this field: PMBOK, ISO 12207, RUP, Agile and lean approaches, ACM/IEEE SE 2004 curriculum. Rather than delivering to the students a canned set of recipes, the objective is to allow them to reason about the strategies, techniques, practices and tools that are most applicable to a given set of circumstances. The approach is complemented by small simulation games used to illustrate a few aspects and to trigger discussion (what happened, how realistic is this, how would you do differently?), or short videos of practices used to initiate a debate in class on a given practice.

Case-based instruction on the web for teaching software project management

Software project management (SPM) is an ill-structured domain, where past experiences of project management can become valuable learning resources for novices. To support instruction in the domain, we have developed the eCASE-SPM Web environment, for engaging students in case-based instruction and help them develop SPM related problem solving skills. This work presents major design issues of the environment and initial research results regarding (a) a student-based evaluation, connecting also students' attitudes to their learning styles, and (b) the learning effectiveness of the environment, investigating the use of embedded question prompts as students' cognitive scaffolds. Results so far reveal interesting interactions between students' learning styles and their attitudes towards learning in the eCASE-SPM environment. Furthermore, there is strong indication that using question prompts may have beneficial effect on students' learning and problem solving abilities, although fading out of the scaffolding should be implemented to moderate students' workload.

Requirements Game: Teaching Software Project Management


 
 
 Several business areas, like Management and Negotiation, have used games like a didactic way to simulate world reality, to introduce students to the day-to-day generated problems, and to extract from the application of games, concrete learning for theoretical knowledge securing. In this paper we present “Requirements Game”, a practical way to simulate software development conditions in a competitive environment similar to real life. This game has been played by several groups of students from Facultad de Minas, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, and this paper summarizes the results from this experience.
 
 

Teaching software project management using simulations

It is increasingly recognized that project management is an important aspect of the computing curriculum. Since many students do not have project experience, it is important to provide this in conjunction with project management concepts. This paper describes our experiences with various project simulations. In particular, we developed a LEGO® bridge building project to teach students how to measure progress and manage change.

Model-driven game development: experience and model enhancements in software project management education

The inadequate use of management techniques in software projects is usually associated with lack of efficient strategies to teach managers and prepare them to face the challenges imposed by real-world projects. Many studies have proposed that a learning-by-doing educational approach would be more effective than the traditional lecture-oriented, professor-centered strategy. However, the former approach requires an environment where students can act as managers without the cost and risks associated with project failures. Games are proposed to act as such an environment, emulating reality through graphical or textual constructs and allowing the trainees to play the managers' role in a risk-free environment. In this work, we present our experiences in developing system dynamics based games for software project management. We describe a project management game intended for training purposes and the changes that were made to allow a system dynamics simulator to support game-like interactions. Moreover, we describe an experimental evaluation of the game's application as a learning-by-doing environment for management students. On the basis of the experience we acquired by building such an interface, we propose models to describe the story underlying a game and its graphical presentation. Such models allow the construction of games without programming, thus fastening the development of simulation-based games. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Evaluating the learning effectiveness of using simulations in software project management education: results from a twice replicated experiment

The increasing demand for software project managers in industry requires strategies for the development of management-related knowledge and skills of the current and future software workforce. Although several educational approaches help to develop the necessary skills in a university setting, few empirical studies are currently available to characterise and compare their effects. This paper presents the results of a twice replicated experiment that evaluates the learning effectiveness of using a process simulation model for educating computer science students in software project management. While the experimental group applied a System Dynamics simulation model, the control group used the well-known COCOMO model as a predictive tool for project planning. The results of each empirical study indicate that students using the simulation model gain a better understanding about typical behaviour patterns of software development projects. The combination of the results from the initial experiment and the two replications with meta-analysis techniques corroborates this finding. Additional analysis shows that the observed effect can mainly be attributed to the use of the simulation model in combination with a web-based role-play scenario. This finding is strongly supported by information gathered from the debriefing questionnaires of subjects in the experimental group. They consistently rated the simulation-based role-play scenario as a very useful approach for learning about issues in software project management.

An Externally Replicated Experiment for Evaluating the Learning Effectiveness of Using Simulations in Software Project Management Education

The increasing demand for software project managers in industry requires strategies for the development of the management-related knowledge and skills of the current and future software workforce. Although several approaches help teach the required skills in a university setting, few empirical studies are currently available to characterize and compare their effects. This paper presents results of an externally replicated controlled experiment that evaluates the learning effectiveness of using a process simulation model for educating computer science students in software project management. While the experimental group applies a system dynamics (SD) simulation model, the control group uses the well-known COCOMO model as a predictive tool for project planning. The results of the empirical study indicate that students using the simulation model gain a better understanding about typical behavior patterns of software development projects. The combination of the results from the initial experiment and the replication corroborates this finding. Additional analysis shows that the observed effect can mainly be attributed to the use of the simulation model in combination with a web-based role-play scenario. This finding is strongly supported by information gathered from the debriefing questionnaires of subjects in the experimental group. They consistently rated the simulation-based role-play scenario as a very useful approach for learning about issues in software project management.