In this episode, you’ll find out why peer reviews are so valuable, how they can improve the quality of your requirements, and much more.

After listening to this episode, you'll understand:

  • Why peer reviews are important for improving requirements quality
  • How peer reviews can reduce cost
  • How to implement different types of peer reviews
  • Why some peer review initiatives fail and what to do about it

Show Notes

A Peer Review is a way to improve quality of work products through having individuals in the group review the product and provide feedback.

A Peer Review can be applied to requirements documents, software code, prototypes, wireframes, technical documents, or anything else for which quality is important.

The added benefit of a Peer Review is that it can help spread knowledge within your group.  This is possible because the creator of the work product shares information with the review participants as part of the process.  As a result, you share knowledge about upcoming product changes and may discover effective practices.

Because the cost of a defect discovered late in the development cycle is much more costly than something found in the analysis phase, peer reviews can improve quality in the beginning stages and save organizations time and money.

Click Here to Get Your Free Guide to Getting Started with Peer Reviews

 

No One Size Fits All

There’s no one right way to perform a Peer Review.  The type of Peer Review you use depends on your specific needs and the type of feedback that will help you improve the quality of your work product.

Types of Peer Reviews range from quick, ad hoc reviews to formal inspections.  For requirements documents, I have found that an approach between formal inspections and walkthroughs provided the biggest benefit.

 

Role-Based Peer Reviews

​A Role-Based Walkthrough is a review in which meeting attendees take of different roles such as tester, developer, sponsor, and various stakeholders.  The author then walks through the document and attendees provide feedback based on their assumed role.

​This type of walkthrough would be done before reviewing the document with the project team and can be done early in development before the document is complete.  This allows the author to make changes early in the process to avoid rework and delays due to further analysis.

Listen to the full episode to learn the benefits of peer reviews, how to avoid common problems, and start a peer review program.

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Your Homework

  1. Find ways to conduct brief peer reviews to improve quality and spread knowledge.
  2. If you don’t have a peer review process in your organization, consider starting one.  The guide to Getting Started with Peer Reviews can help.

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