Making Peer Reviews Work for You
Technical peer reviews are a powerful quality tool, but they’re a bit tricky. Here are 8 critical success factors and some traps to avoid.
I’ve been a fan of software peer reviews and inspections for more than 30 years. I’ve seen the benefits, and I’ve learned something from every review I’ve been in. Peer reviews are a vital component of a software development culture that is focused on quality.
Simply asking a colleague to look over something you’ve created is a great start. Establishing a peer review program and weaving reviews into the cultural fabric of an organization takes time, though. A new review process is fragile, being easily disrupted by unpleasant experiences (“my reviewers treated me like an idiot”) or ineffective results (“we wasted all that time and didn’t find a single major bug”).
Peer reviews are tricky, as they involve technical, social, and cultural dimensions. This article describes eight factors that can make a review program work and points out several traps to avoid.
Critical Success Factors
The people involved and their attitude toward quality are the greatest contributors to a review program’s success. The first critical factor is for your team members…
