Introducing agile into a software development Capstone project

Conveying principles of software analysis, design and implementation in a classroom setting is problematic. When the course involves actual hands on development with clients drawn from industry, the challenges are magnified. This paper discusses the experiences and observations of a set of 10 month independent external projects undertaken by final year students in the computer systems technology program using agile for the first time. We compare situations and observations of projects developed following an agile approach with XP programming by K. Beck in "embracing change with extreme programming" (1999), to our previous projects developed in a traditional approach. Based on these observations, an agile approach seems to support learning, provide a valuable practical experience and produce useable software within an academic environment.