Effort measurement in student software engineering projects

Teaching software engineering by means of student involvement in the team development of a product is the most effective way to teach the main issues of software engineering. Some of its difficulties are those of coordinating their work, measuring the time spent by the students (both in individual work and in meetings) and making sure that meeting time will not be excessive. Starting in the academic year 1998/1999, we assessed, improved and documented the development process for the student projects and found that measurement is one of the outstanding issues to be considered. Each week, the students report the time spent on the different project activities. We present and analyze the measurement results for our 16 student teams (each one with around 6 students). It is interesting to note that the time spent in meetings is usually too long, ranging from 46% in the requirements analysis phase to 21% in coding, mainly due to problems of coordination. Results from previous years are analyzed and presented to the following year's students for feedback. In the present year (2000), we have decreased the amount of time spent by the student doing group work, and improved the effectiveness and coordination of the teams.