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Inspections are a method of identifying and eliminating defects in software development documents like requirements, design, and meta data. This site documents the processes and rules for performing inspections. It also provides a template for documenting inspection outcome.
Inspections are recommended for:
•requirements
•test cases
•designs
•meta data
•other project documentation
Waysys does not recommend inspecting code, because other techniques like test driven development and paired programming can be more effective.
Metrics on inspections indicated that they saved money. Almost all software process experts acknowledge that inspections are useful, but almost no one does them. One reason is that traditional inspections often involve a great deal of time by developers, exactly the people who have the least amount of time during the development portion of the project.
The procedure described here is based on Tom Gilb's extreme inspection. This approach differs from traditional inspections. Traditionally, the goal of inspections is to find all defects in a document or other deliverable. Agile inspection has a different focus: to measure the level of defects in a document. Agile inspection uses a sampling approach, instead of reviewing the complete document. It involves only two or three people, versus five to seven usually recommended for traditional inspections. The time commitment per inspection is usually about one to one and a half hours per person. Therefore, there is much less impact on development time.
The results of agile inspections can provide stakeholders with information about the quality of deliverables. However, it should never be used as a tool for evaluating team members. Inspection participants should be drawn from the author's peers, not supervisors.
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