Deskchecks, the Informal Review
There are work products that do not benefit enough to warrant the attention of a full formal review because they do not need consensus or approval. If you have this type of work products and simply needs input from others to prevent defects, but does not require that they approve the document then what you need is a deskcheck.
A deskcheck is a simple review in which the author of a work product distributes it to one or more reviewers. In a deskcheck, the author sends a copy of the work product to selected project team members. The team members read it, and then write up defects and comments to send back to the author. Work products that are commonly reviewed using a deskcheck include vision and scope documents and discussion summaries.
Deskchecks can be used as predecessors to inspections. In many cases, having an author of a work product pass his work to a peer for an informal review will significantly reduce the amount of effort involved in the inspection. Many defects can be caught by a single person reviewing a document. Approval and consensus is built later on during the inspection meeting; this is simply a way of saving effort. After a deskcheck, many authors will feel much more comfortable sending their document into an inspectionit will often help the author to be more objective and to take the inspection comments less personally.