ReviewProcess

Informal Reviews

• Informal reviews are applied in the early stages of the life cycle of the document.
• These reviews are conducted between two person team. In later stages more people are involved.
• The aim of informal reviews is to improve the quality of the document and help the authors.
• These reviews are not based on the procedure and not documented.

Formal reviews

Formal reviews follow the formal process i.e these reviews are well structured and managed.

Following are the phases of formal reviews:

i) Planning
ii) Kick-Off
iii) Preparation
iv) Review meeting
v) Rework
vi) Follow-up

i) Planning

• Review process starts with planning phase. In planning, the review process starts with a request for review by the authors to the inspection leader.
• In the formal review, the inspection leader executes the entry check and defines the exit criteria.
• Entry criteria verifies the document is ready to enter the formal review process.

ii) Kick-off

• Kick-off meeting is optional in review procedure.
• The aim of kick-off step is to explain the objectives of review and  distribute the documents in meeting etc.

iii) Preparation

• In preparation, reviewers review the document separately using related rules, procedures, documents.
• Every reviewer recognizes the defects, questions and comments as per their role and understanding of document.

iv) Review meeting

Review meeting includes three phases:

1. Logging Phase – Defects and issues are identified in the preparation step that are logged page by page.
2. Discussion Phase – This phase handles the issues that require discussion.
3. Decision Phase – Decision on the document reviews is constructed by reviewers or participants. Sometimes decision is based on formal exit criteria (Average number of major defects found per page).

v) Rework

If the number of defects found per page is more than certain level then the document needs to be reworked.

vi) Follow-up

• In follow up, moderator ensures that author has taken an action on all known defects.
• The distribution of updated document and collection of feedback is completed in follow-up.
• In follow up, it is the responsibility of the moderator to ensure that the information is correct and it stored for future analysis.

Types of Reviews

Main types of review are as follows:

1) Walkthrough
2) Inspection
3) Technical Review

1) Walkthrough

• In walkthrough, author guides the review team via the document to fulfil the common understanding and collecting the feedback.
• Walkthrough is not a formal process.
• In walkthrough, a review team does not require to do detailed study before meeting while authors are already in the scope of preparation.
• Walkthrough is useful for higher-level documents i.e requirement specification and architectural documents.

Goals of walkthrough

• Make the document available for the stakeholders both outside and inside the software discipline for collecting the information about the topic under documentation.
• Describe and evaluate the content of the document.
• Study and discuss the validity of possible alternatives and proposed solutions.

2) Inspection

• The trained moderator guides the Inspection. It is most formal type of review.
• The reviewers are prepared and check the documents before the meeting.
• In Inspection, a separate preparation is achieved when the product is examined and defects are found. These defects are documented in issue log.
• In Inspection, moderator performs a formal follow-up by applying exit criteria.

Goals of Inspection

• Assist the author to improve the quality of the document under inspection.
• Efficiently and rapidly remove the defects.
• Generating the documents with higher level of quality and it helps to improve the product quality.
• It learns from the previous defects found and prohibits the occurrence of similar defects.

3) Technical Review

• Technical review is a discussion meeting that focuses on technical content of the document. It is a less formal review.
• It is guided by a trained moderator or a technical expert.

Goals of technical review

• The goal is to evaluate the value of technical concept in the project environment.
• Build the consistency in the use and representation of the technical concepts.
• In early stages it ensures that the technical concepts are used correctly.
• Notify the participants regarding the technical content of the document.