Teaching Software Project Management using Simulations - The AMEISE Environment: from Concepts to Class Room Experience

1. Objectives The AMEISE (A Media Education Initiative for Software Engineering) approach focuses on the simulation of software project management processes. Based on Stuttgart University's SESAM (Software Engineering Simulation by Animated Models) [1], the AMEISE tool-set allows for repeatedly experiencing the complexity of software project management within a game-like simulation environment [2, 3, 4]. The tutorial participants have the opportunity to run an AMEISE simulation using the socalled quality assurance (QA) simulation model. Based on the description of the required project (simulation goals, available resources), the participants act as a technical project manager who determines the simulated development process by adequate staffing and allocating software development as well as quality assurance tasks. After the simulation process, the success of each project is being analyzed using the AMEISE self-assessment feature. Participants should get new perspectives within the area of software engineering education. In more detail, the objectives are: to become acquainted with AMEISE as a simulation environment for (software) project management, to experience “exercising” software engineering project management with AMEISE, to be able to evaluate the prospective usage of AMEISE for own educational purposes.