Converge model: teaching innovation alongside software development

Abstract

The software development industry has gone through great changes in the last decade. The shift from computer to mobile devices, alongside the popularization of internet of things and wearables have expanded markets and changed the industry. All these factors combined offer many opportunities in innovative new market niches. However, technology-sector projects and startups often fail for a number of reasons that are rarely technical, related instead to market and customer discovery. One of the possible causes is that higher education in software development in the field of Computer Science overlooks business and market aspects, consequently underpreparing students to deal with real-life challenges in software projects. In order to address this situation, a management model meant to guide the development of innovative software products is proposed. This model, named Converge, considers every software project is based on three pillars – technical ability, market and user. To accommodate those three aspects, state of the art methods connected to each pillar were studied extensively and combined. Those methods are Agile development (represented by Scrum and Extreme Programming practices), Lean Startup and Design Thinking. Converge Model’s efficacy in guiding software projects was assessed by implanting the model inside a University mobile experimentation lab that consisted exclusively of undergraduate students. After implantation, there was an assessment of the model’s impact on final products, development process and students’ education, during 10 months. Two case studies were done and are described in this work, explaining the process and listing qualitative results. Finally, to evaluate whether students who took part in the lab changed their perception of software development and developed skills besides technical abilities, a subjective questionnaire was applied and its results examined, depicting Converge Model’s influence on students’ formation and possible educational applications.