Code Review

Timing: 60 mins

Ingredients:

Index Cards

Directions:

One week before the code review, the team is notified about the section, component, or element of code to be reviewed. The team are then given the week to spend examining the code, tests, documentation, design and any other related artefacts. If its available on a test platform then they may even be encouraged to exercise the functionality.

The objective is for each person to capture 3 distinct questions or issues about the code on index cards which they bring to the code review. These questions can be anything from a clarification of functionality, an observation or a recommendation on how something could possibly be implemented in a new or different way.

During the code review, each person, in turn, presents their findings to the team and the review leader captures the comments and tries to group the issues in common areas.

Once everyone has presented their findings they can vote on the areas to focus in on. This could be anything from a high number of raised defects, or a refactor, or just an area that a high percentage of people did not understand.

The team can then discuss what can ( or needs ) to be done to resolve the issues and these can be planned into future iterations

Learning Points:

By encouraging everyone to bring three points to the meeting, it ensures everyone takes time to review the code, and brings something to the meeting that they present.

Less experienced staff, who may miss more subtle issues, will begin to learn from the more experience members of the team.