THE DESIGN THINKING APPROACH IN STUDENTS' TEAM SOFTWARE PROJECTS

An integral element of education in Computer Science studies is a two-semester course "The software team project." In this course, last-year BSc students develop practical applications and acquire techniques of application design and development, learn to work in teams as well as use support tools in non-trivial software projects implemented in the full cycle of software project developing. The team project imitates the work of employees in the real software-developing companies. Student projects are carried out in different, often interdisciplinary, areas. The course was divided in a classical way into the design (first semester) and implementation (second semester) stages. An important didactic element of the course "The software team project" is the software developing model used and the management process. The originally of course assumed cascade model of application implementation, managed by classical methods. Now, this methods are evolving towards such modern approaches as the Agile Method and Design Thinking. Design Thinking is a new approach to software design which focuses on the acquisition of end-user requirements and involves the end-user in the evaluation of solutions from the initial stages of application developing. Depending on the specific situation, the future end-user in the student' projects is a representative of the company on the order of which the project is implemented, a lecturer conducting the classes or a member of the group - the discipline leader, setting the requirements. The article presents examples of the application of the method of Design Thinking in various ongoing projects with different types of end users. Conclusions regarding the implemented approach, its effectiveness and directions for further improvement actions are also presented in the article.