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ABSTRACT
As the most widely used agile software development method, Scrum has become a mainstay in many organizations that develop software. Despite Scrum's popularity, several studies examine Scrum implementations that include some parts of the methodology and exclude others. This paper describes how Scrum has been incorporated into the classroom wholesale and highlights important considerations when using Scrum for student software development projects. Students having little to no knowledge of Scrum were able to gain confidence in using the method in a real-world setting. The paper discusses the use of a hands-on Scrum project as a pedagogical tool for teaching the Scrum methodology and software development life cycle principles. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected to understand student experiences with a wholesale Scrum implementation in the classroom. The paper concludes with data analysis and recommendations for implementing Scrum in future projects.
Keywords: Agile, Scrum, Collaboration, IS education
1.INTRODUCTION
The widespread use of the Internet and the emergence of object-oriented programming have led to unprecedented changes in the software development industry. Seeking competitive advantages in a more globally connected economy, firms sought increases in software production speed, efficiency, and agility. In response, software development practitioners grappled with ways to develop faster, more agile processes to produce more frequent iterations of working software. During the 1990s, a number of agile software development (ASD) methods were created, and this shift in the software development practice was further solidified in 2001 with the advent of the Manifesto for Agile Software Development (Beck et al., 2001). As ASD methods have become a mainstay in the business world, ASD should be taught not only to computer science students but also to business students, such as management information systems (MIS) majors, in order to inform them of the current software development landscape in organizations. Despite the popularity of ASD methods in industry and the increased attention from Information Systems recruiters and executives, current Systems Analysis and Design (SAD) textbooks provide limited knowledge on how to implement ASD methods. Hands-on software development projects, which are appropriately scoped, can help motivate MIS students to explore both the social and technical concepts pertaining to ASD. On this basis, the author assigned MIS students a course project to develop a web application using Scrum, the...