A major control in all software delivery processes is the review process. This is where each agreed work item is scrutinised by other members of the team and their feedback is incorporated into the work item to improve the overall quality of the delivered product.
This will typically works in three phases. The first is the RACI matrix to determine who should review each work item then there is the review cycle for those members of the team who have review responsibility but not sign-off responsibility followed by a final cycle for those that have sign-off.
RACI Matrix
RACI stands for Responsible, Accountable, Consulted and Informed. This can be related directly to the review cycle in the following way:
| RACI | Review Responsibility |
| Responsible | Author of the work Item |
| Accountable | Will have sign-off of the work item. Ideally there should be a single team member who is accountable for each work item based on their role and the item type. Sign-off is an affirmative action that must be given before an item can be used in a subsequent phase of the delivery. |
| Consulted | Will review the item prior to sign-off. Each of their review comments must receive a response but they cannot insist on a comment being applied. |
| Informed | Will receive a copy of the work item on sign-off. |
The job roles that are typically given each RACI type depends on the work item being produced. The following table describes a reasonable approach for the most common work items that are produced in the delivery of software. This is often described as a RACI Matrix.
| Work Item |
Stakeholder/ Sponsor | Subject Matter Expert |
Scrum Master/ Project Manager |
Product Owner/ Business Analyst |
Solution Analyst/ Technical Architect | Developer | Tester |
| Requirement | A | C | C | R | C | I | I |
| Acceptance Criteria | I | A | C | R | C | I | I |
| Design | I | I | A | I | R | I | I |
| Configuration Management Item | I | C | I | A | R | I | |
| Test Case | C | C | A | C | I | R |
Each individual work item produced within a project should include a list of the team members that are to review it and also who is responsible for sign-off. In a large team these may be different individuals but with the same job roles as specified above.
Review Cycle
The review cycle is completed after the draft version of the work item has been produced by the author to provide feedback on the contents of the work item.
Typically it is best to complete reviews with a peer prior to internal and then external reviewers to hopefully minimise the volume of feedback from more senior reviewers. This process can also be quite time consuming especially if the overall quality of the initially published document is not of a high enough quality.
When the author is happy with the work item then they will publish it to their first set of reviewers.
Each reviewer will then review the item making their comments against each item that they require to be changed or clarified. When they have completed this process then they will reply to the author that their review is complete together with their list of comments.
The author is then responsible for reading each review comment and choosing to either accept the comment and make the appropriate change to the work item or to provide the requested clarification or reason why the comment was not accepted to the original reviewer.
When all comments have been processed then the author has the choice of submitting the new version of the work item to the same reviewers again or to a different set of reviewers. This decision is normally based on the number of review comments and how many were accepted or rejected. Finally if all reviewers have had the opportunity to review the work item at least once then the work item can then be submitted for sign-off.
Sign-off Cycle
The sign-off cycle is very similar to that of the review cycle with the major exception that the document must be provided back to the signatory when all review comments have been processed for sign-off. At this point the signatory can either choose to provide sign-off or make further comments. Evidence of sign-off should always be retained for governance purposes as should the details of all comments made in the review of a document and the outcome of those comments.