Finishing: A Missing Topic in Software Engineering Education

Based on the authors' experiences almost all (more than 97 percent) student projects suffer due to finishing problems, such as incomplete functionalities, weak "user guides", no "help", incomplete development documents, and undefined reflexes to some possible inputs; while in practice good quality of products depends on their completeness and satisfaction of their users. The development process should also include proper finishing at all of its different stages. Examples such as unclear agreements, unknown users, and missing the presentation of the product are common problems in such projects which will result in severe effects.

While finishing is an important and effective item in the management of the software development process and software engineering (SE), unfortunately it does not have any clear position in SE education literature.

This paper defines finishing and points out the important roles of finishing in both management and technical aspects of software processes. Moreover it suggests a SE course, which includes finishing as a course topic; and addresses related pedagogic attributes and treatments.