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Context In recent years the interest in using serious games for software engineering, software process, software project management and software process standards education has increased significantly. The ISO 21500 standard is an international reference standard that provides generic guidance and good practices in project management. Objective The objective of this work is to identify the state of the art related to the use of serious games for understanding, teaching and supporting education of the standard ISO 21500 with the goal of proposing a simulation-based serious game that supports its management processes in the context of software projects. Method A multivocal literature review was conducted and a simulation-based serious game, called ProDec, was proposed. In addition, we analyzed the coverage of the management processes, the process and subject groups of the ISO 21500 that ProDec is able to provide, and we conducted an empirical evaluation to assess the educational effectiveness of the game in terms of motivation, user experience, and learning outcomes. Results As a result, ProDec is able to cover 7 of the 10 subject groups and almost 75% of the project management processes of the ISO 21500 standard. Moreover, all the participants, involved in the empirical evaluation, expressed positive comments that ProDec stimulated their motivation, offered a positive user experience and promoted the learning of the management processes involved in these 7 subject groups. Conclusion The analysis of the coverage of the ISO 21500 and the outcomes of the educational effectiveness assessment allow us to conclude that ProDec can be a helpful learning resource to be used within the learning/teaching process of the ISO 21500 standard in the context of software projects.

Context: The interest in the use of serious games as learning resources for software process standards education and training has increased significantly in recent years. Objective: The main purpose of this work is to record, analyze and characterize the state of the art related to serious games for software process standards education with the goal of identifying the current serious games in terms of the scope, their main features and the perceived benefits of integrating them in software process education, as well as, identifying new research opportunities. Method: The study was conducted as a multivocal literature review that follows a predefined procedure in which studies from the scientific and grey literature are analyzed. Results: A new selection process within the search strategy was defined to conduct this review. 190 papers were retrieved from the literature and 7 papers were selected as primary studies. Our multivocal literature review identified six different serious games for software process education, at the same time analyzed the main methods used to assess them as well as their main outcomes as learning resources. Conclusion: The results of this review reveal that serious games have potential as supporting tools for software process standards education, but that more research and experimental outcomes are needed in order to observe the full potential of serious games as learning resources.

Serious games involve applying game design techniques to tasks of a serious nature. In particular, serious games can be used as informative tools and can be embedded in formal education. Although there are some studies related to the application of serious games for the software development process, there is no serious game that teaches the fundamentals of the ISO/IEC 12207:1995 Systems and software engineering Software life cycle processes, which is an international standard for software lifecycle processes that aims to be the standard that defines all the tasks required for developing and maintaining software. Floors is a serious game that proposes an interactive learning experience to introduce ISO/IEC 12207:1995 by creating different floors of a virtual environment where various processes of the standard are discussed and implemented. Inherently, it follows an iterative process based on interactive technical dialogues in a 3D computer simulated office. The tool is designed to assess the novice engineering practitioners knowledge and provide preliminary training for ISO/IEC 12207:1995 processes. By playing such a game, participants are able to learn about the details of this standard. The present study provides a framework for the exploration of research data obtained from computer engineering students. Results suggest that there is a significant difference between the knowledge gained among the students who have played Floors and those who have only participated in paper-based learning sessions. Our findings indicate that participants who played Floors tend to have greater knowledge of the ISO/IEC 12207:1995 standard, and as a result, we recommend the use of serious games that seem to be superior to traditional paper based approach. An interactive ISO/IEC 12207 educational game is designed.A novel approach is proposed for process education.We explore the potentials of serious games in ISO/IEC 12207 education.

Small software companies have to work hard in order to survive. They usually find it challenging to spend time and effort on improving their operations and processes. Therefore, it is important to address such needs by the introduction of a proposed framework that specifies ways of getting things done while consciously encourage them to enhance their ability to improve. Although there are many software process improvement approaches, none of them address the human factors of small companies in a comprehensive and holistic way. Samay is a proposed framework to integrate human factors in the daily work as a way to deal with that challenge. This study suggests managing human factors but pointing out the software process life cycle. The purpose is to converge toward a continuous improvement by means of alternative mechanisms that impact on people. This framework was developed based upon reviews of relevant standards (such as ISO/IEC 29110, ISO 10018, OMG Essence and ISO/IEC 33014) and previously published studies in this field. Moreover, an expert review and validation findings supported the view that Samay could support practitioners when small software companies want to start improving their ways of work. A standard based framework: ISO/IEC 29110, ISO 10018, OMG Essence and ISO/IEC 33014.Human factors identification along the software process life cycle.Merging these human factors into Samay, our standard based framework.Validation of the proposed approach, and highlighting benefits and limitations.

The importance of Software Architecture (SA) design has been acknowledged as a very important factor for a high-quality software development. Different efforts in both industry and academia have produced multiple system development methodologies (SDMs) that include SA design activities. In addition, standardization bodies have defined different recommendations regarding Software Architecture design. However, in industry Software Architecture best practices are currently poorly employed. This fact constrains the benefits that industry can potentially obtain from Software Architecture design in software development. In this paper, we analyze the degree to which the four main recognized SDMs - RUP (Rational Unified Process), MSF (Microsoft Solutions Framework), MBASE (Model-Based System Architecting and Software Engineering), and RUP-SOA (Rational Unified Process for Service-oriented Architecture) - adhere to the best practices of Software Architecture design. Our analysis points out some of the most important strengths and weaknesses regarding Software Architecture design and highlights some of the most relevant issues of Software Architecture design that need to be incorporated into such methodologies. The relevance of software architecture (SA) design for achieving high quality software is traced from their fundamental concepts.The SA design activities used in four relevant software development methodologies (SDMs) (RUP, MSF, MBASE and RUP-SOA) are reported.The SA design activities used in previous four SDMs are analyzed by using a highly cited and integrative SA design model (Hofmeister et al., 2007).MBASE, MSF and RUP-SOA were found highly satisfactory on theoretical adherence to the SA design model. RUP was found incomplete.Our research points out unsolved issues, which are venues for future research in software architecture design methods.