1. Walkthrough:
- It is not a formal process
- It is led by the authors
- Author guide the participants through the document according to his or her thought process to achieve a common understanding and to gather feedback.
- Useful for the people if they are not from the software discipline, who are not used to or cannot easily understand software development process.
- Is especially useful for higher level documents like requirement specification, etc.
The goals of a walkthrough:
- To present the documents both within and outside the software discipline in order to gather the information regarding the topic under documentation.
- To explain or do the knowledge transfer and evaluate the contents of the document
- To achieve a common understanding and to gather feedback.
- To examine and discuss the validity of the proposed solutions
2. Technical review:
- It is less formal review
- It is led by the trained moderator but can also be led by a technical expert
- It is often performed as a peer review without management participation
- Defects are found by the experts (such as architects, designers, key users) who focus on the content of the document.
- In practice, technical reviews vary from quite informal to very formal
The goals of the technical review are:
- To ensure that an early stage the technical concepts are used correctly
- To access the value of technical concepts and alternatives in the product
- To have consistency in the use and representation of technical concepts
- To inform participants about the technical content of the document
3. Inspection:
- It is the most formal review type
- It is led by the trained moderators
- During inspection the documents are prepared and checked thoroughly by the reviewers before the meeting
- It involves peers to examine the product
- A separate preparation is carried out during which the product is examined and the defects are found
- The defects found are documented in a logging list or issue log
- A formal follow-up is carried out by the moderator applying exit criteria
The goals of inspection are:
- It helps the author to improve the quality of the document under inspection
- It removes defects efficiently and as early as possible
- It improve product quality
- It create common understanding by exchanging information
- It learn from defects found and prevent the occurrence of similar defects
