What design reviews are not |
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Written by Graham Stoney
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The focus of a design review should be on the technical aspects of the design, and specifically how well it meets its requirements. Personality issues need to be left at the door, and an atmosphere of mutual trust is necessary.
Everyone attending a design review should understand that refining the design as efficiently and effectively as possible is the main goal. Design reviews are not a forum for personal point-scoring.
Nor is the design review a place to demolish other engineers in front of their peers. Senior engineers need to take a leadership role in providing feedback in a manner which is courteous and respectful of the engineer presenting their work for scrutiny. Not everyone relishes this opportunity and some may take criticism of their design personally. Again, senior engineers can take the lead by presenting their own work for review and accepting feedback gracefully. In a project where development is biased towards a top-down approach, this tends to happen naturally as the system engineer is likely to be one of the most senior engineers, and should be presenting the system architecture for review by other engineers early on in the project.
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