SERGE – Serious Game for the Education of Risk Management in Software Project Management

Software Project Management is the systematic and disciplined approach for planning, executing, monitoring, controlling, and closing software development projects. Risk management is a key knowledge area that aims to react to the unpredictable events that often affect software projects. Teaching risk management is vital to equip individuals and organizations with the adapted skills to prevent and monitor challenges and potential issues. In this paper, we propose a serious game named SERGE, conceived to involve students in learning risk management and improve their skills through gamification and simulation of a real-world application context. The features for the design of SERGE were identified through a literature review. An iterative Game Design Phase was employed to build, test, and refine the design of SERGE. Finally, the proposed approach was assessed by conducting a controlled experiment to compare risk management skills acquired through a traditional lecture and using SERGE. The results show that adopting a serious game as SERGE, able to involve the students actively, can improve the acquisition of risk management skills.