Inspections, the Inspector Gadget of Software Projects
Most project managers have seen their projects get delayed because of scope creep and unnecessary work caused by changes that, had they been caught earlier, would have required much less work to fix. One of the most common complaints from project team members is that they would have built the software differently had they been given a better understanding of what was needed from the beginning. One important root cause of these problems is defects in work products that are not caught until long after those work products have been used as the basis for later project activities.
A solution for these problems is doing inspection reviews. An inspection is one of the most common sorts of review found in software projects. The goal of the inspection is for all of the inspectors to reach consensus on a work product and approve it for use in the project. Commonly inspected work products include software requirements specifications and test plans. In an inspection, a work product is selected for review and a team is gathered for an inspection meeting to review the work product. A moderator is chosen to moderate the meeting. Each inspector prepares for the meeting by reading the work product and noting each defect. In an inspection, a defect is any part of the work product that will keep an inspector from approving it. For example, if the team is inspecting a software requirements specification, each defect will be text in the document that an inspector disagrees with. The goal of the inspection is to repair all of the defects so that everyone on the inspection team can approve the work product.
Inspections are easy to implement, and have an immediate effect on quality and consensus-building. A small team spending a few hours inspecting a work product will catch errors that could potentially save weeks, or even months, of wasted effort. An effective inspection requires a well-chosen team, a moderator who is able to run the meeting, and an author who is willing to listen to criticism and fix the work product being inspected.