Using post mortem analysis to evaluate software architecture student projects

This paper presents experiences and results from using the post mortem analysis (PMA) method to evaluate student projects in a software architecture course at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). The PMA gave students an opportunity to evaluate their own work as well as evaluating the project as a whole. The results of the analysis revealed several positive and negative issues related to the project that could be used to improve the course for the next year. We also discovered that the PMA gave us a much more detailed evaluation than the more traditional form-based course evaluations. In addition, the students found the PMA method a useful and pratical way of summarising and learning from a project. Since the students got to practice the PMA method, they can also bring this software process improvement practice out to companies when they start working in the IT-industry.