Second Year Project: Software Development in Large Teams (15 ECTS) (Spring 2025)

Abstract

In collaboration with industrial partners, students will apply Scrum in practice and reason about its application in a controlled yet realistic environment.

Description

Students will collaborate with industrial partners on projects that are relevant to the industry and provided by these partners. They will experience what it is like to work on a real industrial project in a setting as realistic as possible. They will apply in practice all the software engineering skills they have learned in their earlier courses, while also learning new technologies.

Student groups will learn to apply Scrum, one of the agile frameworks, in practice by performing several short iterations in their projects. Each group of 7–9 students will be supported by a product owner from the industrial partner, a Scrum master enrolled in a master-level elective course, and an agile coach from the industry.

Semester Layout. The course will be divided into four blocks. In the first block, weeks 1 and 2, you will be involved in the formation of the groups and the matchmaking with the industrial partners. During the second block, weeks 3 and 4, you will kick off the project with your Scrum team. Finally, in the third block, weeks 5 to 17, you will run six two-week sprints and participate in two feedback sessions. The course will conclude with a final week of submissions, demos, and celebrations before the exam session.

Formal prerequisites

• You are enrolled on the BSc study program in software development.
• You know the basics of software engineering, e.g., different software process models and related activities, corresponding to what is covered in the BSc course Analysis, Design and Software Architecture.
• You are able to apply some programming language to construct fully functional software programs, corresponding, e.g., to what is covered in the BSc course Analysis, Design and Software Architecture. 
• You are aware of the basic techniques for planning and conducting a software development project in a small team of 5-7 students.

Intended learning outcomes

After the course, the student should be able to:

• Apply Scrum in a large-scale software development project as part of a team in cooperation with an industrial partner
• Select and apply (new) technologies (potentially including programming languages) within the context of the project
• Identify and solve teamwork related issues
• Select and apply suitable software engineering practices and tools
• Identify and solve software engineering problems
• Compare and discuss with other teams the different experiences and learnings from the project
• Reflect on the project in terms of learnings gained from a software engineering and teamwork perspective

Ordinary exam

Exam type:
D: Submission of written work with following oral, Internal (7-point scale)
Exam variation:
D2G: Submission for groups with following oral exam supplemented by the submission. Shared responsibility for the report.