Scrumify:A Software Game to Introduce Agile Software Development Methods

Abstract

Software Engineering courses are perceived as being dry and boring. The education community has been looking at active learning and hands-on training techniques to engage students better and thereby provide a better understanding of concepts. This paper presents a web-based game called Scrumify, developed by undergraduate students, that is designed to introduce students to the Scrum software development process through story elements, and quiz mechanics. The game is designed to reinforce software engineering concepts more specifically agile software processes. Quizzes within the game are designed to grant points that inject a sense of competition for the users and motivation to learn the agile methodology concepts. Scrumify serves two objectives: software engineering education for audience of the game and web-based game development and software testing education for the developers of the game. Use of this game in classroom provides an active learning technique for agile software processes. Students are more engaged with games and thereby absorb the concepts better. The game was evaluated in a sophomore software engineering class and the results are presented.