A serious game to support the ISO 21500 standard education in the context of software project management

Context: In recent years the interest in using serious games for software engineering, software process, software project management and software process standards education has increased significantly. The ISO 21500 standard is an international reference standard that provides generic guidance and good practices in project management. Objective: The objective of this work is to identify the state of the art related to the use of serious games for understanding, teaching and supporting education of the standard ISO 21500 with the goal of proposing a simulation-based serious game that supports its management processes in the context of software projects. Method: A multivocal literature review was conducted and a simulation-based serious game, called ProDec, was proposed. In addition, we analyzed the coverage of the management processes, the process and subject groups of the ISO 21500 that ProDec is able to provide, and we conducted an empirical evaluation to assess the educational effectiveness of the game in terms of motivation, user experience, and learning outcomes. Results: As a result, ProDec is able to cover 7 of the 10 subject groups and almost 75% of the project management processes of the ISO 21500 standard. Moreover, all the participants, involved in the empirical evaluation, expressed positive comments that ProDec stimulated their motivation, offered a positive user experience and promoted the learning of the management processes involved in these 7 subject groups. Conclusion: The analysis of the coverage of the ISO 21500 and the outcomes of the educational effectiveness assessment allow us to conclude that ProDec can be a helpful learning resource to be used within the learning/teaching process of the ISO 21500 standard in the context of software projects.