Types Of Reviews

Formal review:

A typical formal review has the following main phases:

1. Planning: selecting the personnel, allocating roles; defining the entry and exit criteria for more

formal review types (e.g. inspection); and selecting which parts of documents to look at.

2. Kick-off: distributing documents; explaining the objectives, process and documents to the participants; and checking entry criteria (for more formal review types).

3. Individual preparation: work done by each of the participants on their own before the review meeting, noting potential defects, questions and comments.

4. Review meeting: discussion or logging, with documented results or minutes (for more formal review types). The meeting participants may simply note defects, make recommendations for handling the defects, or make decisions about the defects.

5. Rework: fixing defects found, typically done by the author.

6. Follow-up: checking that defects have been addressed, gathering metrics and checking on exit criteria (for more formal review types).

Roles and responsibilities

A typical formal review will include the roles below:

• Manager: decides on the execution of reviews, allocates time in project schedules and determines if the review objectives have been met.
• Moderator: the person who leads the review of the document or set of documents, including planning the review, running the meeting, and follow-up after the meeting. If necessary, the moderator may mediate between the various points of view and is often the person upon whom the success of the review rests.
• Author: the writer or person with chief responsibility for the document(s) to be reviewed.
• Reviewers: individuals with a specific technical or business background (also called checkers or inspectors) who, after the necessary preparation, identify and describe findings (e.g. defects) in the product under review. Reviewers should be chosen to represent different perspectives and roles in the review process, and should take part in any review meetings.
• Scribe (or recorder): documents all the issues, problems and open points that were identified during the meeting. Peer Review is generally a one-to-one meeting between the author of a work product and a peer, initiated as a request for import regarding a particular artifact or problem. There is no agenda, and results are not formally reported. These reviews occur on an as needed basis throughout each phase of a project.

Informal review

Key characteristics:

• no formal process;
• there may be pair programming or a technical lead reviewing designs and code;
• optionally may be documented;
• may vary in usefulness depending on the reviewer;
• Main purpose: inexpensive way to get some benefit.

Walkthrough

Key characteristics:

• meeting led by author;
• scenarios, dry runs, peer group;
• open-ended sessions;
• optionally a pre-meeting preparation of reviewers, review report, list of findings and scribe (who is not the author);
• May vary in practice from quite informal to very formal;
• Main purposes: learning, gaining understanding, defect finding.

Technical review

Key characteristics:

• documented, defined defect-detection process that includes peers and technical experts;
• may be performed as a peer review without management participation;
• ideally led by trained moderator (not the author);
• pre-meeting preparation;
• optionally the use of checklists, review report, list of findings and management participation;
• may vary in practice from quite informal to very formal;
• Main purposes: discuss, make decisions, evaluate alternatives, find defects, solve technical problems and check conformance to specifications and standards.

Inspection

Key characteristics:

• led by trained moderator (not the author);
• usually peer examination;
• defined roles;
• includes metrics;
• formal process based on rules and checklists with entry and exit criteria;
• pre-meeting preparation;
• inspection report, list of findings;
• formal follow-up process;
• optionally, process improvement and reader;
• Main purpose: find defects.