The work-reflection-learning cycle - Department of Computer and ...

3 Software Engineering student projects: state-of-theart
In this section, I provide a brief overview of state-of-the-art research identifying
challenges that are addressed through the research contributions of the thesis. The
chapter is organized in line with the research questions RQ1-RQ4
3.1 The characteristics of SE student projects
A first main characteristic of SE student projects is that they are instances of software
engineering. The IEEE Computer Society defines software engineering as: "(1) The
application of a systematic, disciplined, quantifiable approach to the development,
operation, and maintenance of software; that is, the application of engineering to
software. (2) The study of approaches as in (1)." (IEEE 1990). The knowledge areas
associated with software engineering (Abran et al. 2004) comprise technical knowledge
as well as knowledge of the human and social aspects of cooperation. Software
development constitutes “an exercise in complex interrelationships” with frequent adhoc
collaboration (Cherry and Robillard 2008). There may be many project stakeholders
(e.g. customers, users, technology providers), each with their own perspectives and
interests (Poole 2003). Collaboration with the stakeholders is essential and frequently
challenging (Brady et al. 2006). The complexity of design work (Carstensen and
Schmidt 2002 (1999)) makes SE work unpredictable and difficult to coordinate. The
many project failures in SE industry (Keil et al. 2000) point to a need to learn from
experience (Lyytinen and Robey 1999). The SE student projects of the case studies in
this thesis have external customers, which contributes to a realistic complexity of work.
Based on recent increased understanding of the need for flexibility and adaptability to
change in many SE projects, many popular software development methodologies are
based on iterations and incremental development (Boehm 1988; Kruchten 2003) and –
in case of agile methodologies – an increased focus on user/customer interaction rather
than extensive documentation (Beck 2000; Cockburn 2006; Dybå and Dingsøyr 2008)
(Germain and Robillard 2004). In a given software development project, the choice of
development methodology should be made with the specific characteristics of that
project in mind (Cockburn 2000). Project management is to some extent linked to the
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