Improving code quality in agile teams

Here are a few quick pointers that have worked for me to improve code quality in agile teams and to deliver stories completely without leaving bugs behind.

• Improve how retrospectives are done so they can effectively detect and address these kinds of quality problems
• If there are quality differences in the code written by different team members, have the better programmers find ways to raise the quality of code written by others.
• Focus on defect prevention, not just detection. Tools that can help are:
  • code inspections
  • checklists
• Use pair-programming to improve knowledge sharing within the team. It seems expensive but mostly it is worth it.
• Begin regular use of static or dynamic code analysis tools.
• Implement continous integration tools to proactively detect and prevent code quality issues