'''Formal Review Process'''

''Problem:'' Code and design inspections are not happening often enough to be effective, or the inspections are not rigorous enough to be effective.

''Context/Forces:''
	* You are doing code and/or design reviews
	* You may or may not have FormalStandards
	* There is no clear idea of what to inspect and how to review designs and code
	* Some developers don't "get away from coding" unless they are forced
	* Some things are being reviewed, and some aren't

''Solution:'' Institute a formal review process.  Document and enforce how designs and/or code is to be reviewed.

(I have even seen employee performance scores affected by their adherence to a code standard, which was enforced by the review process)

''Resulting Context:'' Code and/or design reviews are being done according to known guidelines for everything produced by a development team.

''Related Patterns:'' See CodeReviewPatterns.

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I've read (and firmly believe) that CodeReview''''''s are near-worthless without good CodingConventions and that it is impossible to maintain CodingConventions without CodeReview''''''s. --JeremyCromwell

A lot of Smalltalk groups maintain CodingConventions without formal code reviews.  The code gets read a lot by everyone on the team, but not in a
review.    So, I don't think the second half of this statement is true.

What is a FormalReviewProcess?  This pattern says "have one", but it
doesn't say what one is. --RalphJohnson

I think for most people FormalReviewProcess = "It's written down".  Sort of like ISO9000. --JasonYip

See FormalReviewTechniques