Customer Reviews

Handbook of Walkthroughs, Inspections, and Technical Reviews: Evaluating Programs, Projects, and Products

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Having launced a comprehensive software review & inspection process for several major corporations, most recently United Airlines, I found this particular book confusing and almost impossible as a ready reference or resource. The question-answer format provides information based on the questions the author believes you should ask, and makes referencing for specific information frustrating and time-consuming, if not impossible. The examples are elementary and lack significant value. A far better resource is "Software Inspection," by Gilb and Graham; Addison-Wesley publishers.

Software Inspection by Gilb covers the subject a lot better. However, Freedman and Weinberg's book has a lot of good points on group dynamics and politics and such that Gilb doesn't get into. Freedman's book is a quick read too.

For me there are many, many valuable lessons in this book. Not only does it provide a step-by-step explanation of how to run software reviews and how to get them accepted in the organization, what is even more important is that everywhere the "why" behind choices is explained. That allows me to transfer sound principles to a wide variety of settings. In every company reviews "work" slightly differently, and this book has helped me figure out how to match the implementation to the specific setting.

Quite apart from the great content, I found the writing style a delight: witty, chock full of wisdom, and a breeze to get through. At over 400 pages it "looks" like a tome, but I went through it like a breeze. And I keep returning to it, which says a lot about the depth of coverage. Handbook of Walkthroughs, Inspections, and Technical Reviews: Evaluating Programs, Projects, and Products

The book Walkthroughs, Inspections, and Technical Reviews is a very informative text that is organized in a unique manner. The organization of the book takes a while getting used to. I am curious if the book would take a different approach in the era of lean systems engineering.