Enriching Traditional Software Engineering Curricula with Software Project Management Knowledge

Training existing and future software project managers presents a challenge to the academic community. Software project management is usually taught as part of software engineering bachelor or master programs which are generally based on SWEBOK. However, evidence shows that even when SWEBOK provides some software project management knowledge it is not enough to satisfy the software industry requirements. On the other hand, the Software Extension to the PMBOK Guide was recently published. The extension complements the original PMBOK with software specific contents, so it constitutes valuable referential information for software project managers. This paper describes a smooth transition to enrich our traditional software engineering curricula based on SWEBOK with specific software project management knowledge. To that end, we identify which software project management knowledge suggested by the Software Extension to the PMBOK provides special added value to the SWEBOK contents. The results can be useful for academia but also for software engineering practitioners that can identify training opportunities to complement their SWEBOK background.