Simulating Software Projects – An Approach for Teaching Project Management

In this paper, the results of two industrial case studies on software project management are presented. These case studies revealed key problem areas in software project management and also proved that there is a serious lack in training of software project managers. To reduce these deficiencies, we suggest a new approach for teaching project management: simulating software projects. The simulation is based on models of software development processes that can be executed. We present a new simulation model, the QA model. The development of that model was strongly guided by the results of the case study. We show in detail how simulation models can be bolstered by specific industrial data to provide the highest possible benefit to simulation model users.