Towards transferring lean software startup practices in software engineering education

Abstract

In the modern economy, software drives innovation and economic growth. Studies show how software increasingly influences all industry sectors. During the last five decades, software engineering has also changed significantly to advance the development of various types and scales of software products. In this context, Software Engineering Education plays an essential role in keeping students updated with software technologies, processes, and practices popular in industries. In this Ph.D. work, I want to answer the following research questions: (1) To what extent are SE Trends presented in SEE research? (2) What do we know about the Lean Startups paradigm? (3) What is the impact of Lean Startup practices to software engineering students and curriculum? I utilize (1) literature review and (2) Mixed-methods approaches (data and methods triangulation) in gathering empirical evidence. In the first phase of the research, I pinpoint the relevance of Lean Startup within the software engineering education throughout an extensive literature review. I gather empirical evidence on Lean Startup practices and their potential transfer in software engineering education during the second research phase. I demonstrate that Lean Startup is part of the emerging software engineering trends within software engineering education research. I identify the gap of growth phase Lean Startup research in present software paradigms. I demonstrate that students can acquire soft, hard, and project management skills in a more realistic context while introducing growth phase Lean Startup practices throughout external course activities. I expect that the present software engineering curricula can benefit from a model and framework, which I intend to propose, facilitating Lean Startup practice transfer within the software engineering curriculum.