Retrospectives in a software engineering project course: Getting students to get the most from a project experience

Abstract

Project retrospectives are an established "best practice" in software process improvement. As a tool for learning how to perform better as a development organization, retrospectives may provide an additional learning opportunity for students in software engineering project courses. This paper describes a project retrospective approach that has been adapted to the academic setting. Academic project retrospectives not only provide students with the opportunity to reflect on their project performance, it gives the instructor additional information on improving the delivery, management, and learning outcomes. Key elements and suggestions for improvements of the retrospective are described.