Introducing Risk Management Techniques Within Project Based SoftwareEngineering Courses.

In 1996, USC switched its core two-semester software engineering coursefrom a hypothetical-project, homework-and-exam course based on the Bloom taxonomyof educational objectives (knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis,synthesis, and evaluation). The revised course is a real-client team-projectcourse based on the CRESST model of learning objectives (content understanding,problem solving, collaboration, communication, and self-regulation). We usedthe CRESST cognitive demands analysis to determine the necessary student skillsrequired for software risk management and the other major project activities,and have been refining the approach over the last 5 years of experience, includingrevised versions for one-semester undergraduate and graduate project courseat Columbia. This paper summarizes our experiences in evolving the risk management aspectsof the project course. These have helped us mature more general techniquessuch as risk-driven specifications, domain-specific simplifier and complicatorlists, and the schedule as an independent variable (SAIV) process model. Thelargely positive results in terms of review of pass/fail rates, client evaluations,product adoption rates, and hiring manager feedback are summarized as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]