Use of Gamification to Teach Agile Values and Collaboration: A multi-week Scrum simulation project in an undergraduate software engineering course

Collaboration and communication are key to successful agile software development. Respect, openness, transparency and trust are core Agile values. However studies show, that there is a shortage of software developers with these skills. How can we teach these skills to software engineering students' This paper presents the approach of using a multi-week Scrum Paper City simulation game. The course execution was accompanied by a thorough evaluation to find out how effective this approach is compared to traditional ex-cathedra teaching. While the evaluation shows some aspects to be improved, it clearly shows that students like to experience the Agile approach directly in a project, that they enjoy more fun, and the collaboration in the team.