Game-based Training of Communication Skills in Requirements Engineering

Communication and cooperation among stakeholders and developers is a critical factor for success in requirements engineering [1], [2]. Usually studies in this field just point to the problems, but a comprehensive set of tools or techniques for improvement of communication skills is not given. This study contains summary of research in which the authors use serious games approach [3], [4] for structuring the learning content for strengthening communicational aspect of requirements engineering skills. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI) is used for stakeholder personality analysis in order to form basis for learning – how to improve communications and overall productivity in requirements engineering. The MBTI instrument is based on the theory of personality types described by Carl Jung and Isabel Briggs Myers and Katharine Briggs [5]. This theory states that many of the valuable differences between people are a result of natural preferences that everyone has for different ways of perceiving, or taking in information, as well as for different ways of judging and making decisions. If these natural differences can be understood and appreciated, working relationships can be improved. Theory can help with:  Better understanding how people communicate with each other  Identifying possible sources of misunderstandings  Resolving or avoiding communication conflicts  Developing a more productive working relationships In synthesis of MBTI with serious game framework a tool can be developed for training communication skills in requirements engineering [6]. Military and emergency services were the early adopters of serious games for training. Nowadays serious games as training means are used in many different industries and are also utilized in universities and schools [4]. While the characteristics of common computer games and serious games are quite different, they both incorporate common game attributes, namely, backstory and storyline. Every game has a backstory upon which the game is based, and a story line that it follows, which can be referred as the rationale for the game play. Serious games offer an additional value to traditional learning materials and methods by allowing the student not only to learn, but also to apply the learnt skills in practice. We propose the following concept of the game. The content on particular requirements engineering issues, such as knowledge to be acquired during business or systems analysis tasks can be incorporated in the backstory of the game. Different distributions of this knowledge among the virtual actors can be enriched by specific MBTI