Quality assurance in a student-based agile software engineering process

Agile methodologies have proven to be a popular addition to the software engineering toolbox, promising significant advances in quality for small teams, with developers no longer weighed under by the documentation said to characterise traditional approaches. Yet, in spite of these claims, quality assurance remains a question to which agile methodologies have given only a partially satisfactory answer. This work examines quality assurance practices among student developers working within a lightweight iterative development process. Our focus is upon the linkages between their reported practices and the quality levels observed in the systems delivered. The study has identified a range of approaches to improving quality for small, inexperienced teams, with applications to both the educational and SME environments.