Anyone who has questioned why they need to have a formal review and inspection process should take a look at Barry Boehm’s “Software Defect Reduction Top Ten List”. http://www.cs.umd.edu/projects/SoftEng/ESEG/papers/82.78.pdf
In particular, look at the following items from the list.
- Item 6 states “Peer reviews catch 60 percent of the defects.”
- Item 7 states “Perspective-based reviews catch 35 percent more defects than nondirected reviews.”
…. all I can say is, you should have seen some of the content that was going to be published on the web-site. Content that would appear coherent and sane from an author who has been suffering from 2 hours of ‘snow-blindness’ is quickly (and kindly) established as anything during a formal review.
(“Snow-blindness” – where a person is spending so much focus on a task that the person gradually fails to see the wider picture until the only thing apparent is the problem or solution created. The person is blinded by the problem/solution – hence snow blindness. A colleague (with a fresh perspective) can quickly identify issues/solutions very quickly).
Ever get that when writing code or designing an algorithm?
To people who say that they don’t have time to perform a review – read Boehm’s article and question if you can afford not to.
