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The project manager must choose a team of 3 to 10 inspectors. Ideally, each inspector
should represent a different perspective on the work product. A designer will use a docu-
ment for different tasks than a programmer will. It is important that each person who will
use the document has his views represented in the inspection team. This is critical for
catching all of the defects.

During the inspection, the team works to identify any defects in the work product. They
are expected to evaluate it from two perspectives. The most important evaluation is from
the perspective of their own expertise, where the inspectors identify any issues that will
interfere with the development of the project. For this role, they must draw on their engi-
neering skills and experience with past software projects. But inspectors should also eval-
uate the work product from a common sense perspective. Each inspection team member
should think about the ideas in the vision and scope document and consider several ques-
tions: does the work product being inspected fulfill the needs laid out in the vision and
scope document? Does it really answer the problem posed by earlier work products? Will
it be able to serve as a basis for all of the work products that will come later in the prod-
uct? Good inspection team members will be able to keep these questions in mind.
Select a Moderator

The project manager must choose a moderator to run the inspection meetings. This person
must be able to objectively evaluate the work product being inspected and understand any
issues that are raised during the inspection. The moderator will also need to be able to
control the meeting. If a few inspectors start a discussion to address a defect that might
take a lot of time, the moderator will have to be able to stop that discussion and table it as
an open issue. It takes some practice to keep control of a meeting.
The project manager should be an inspector, so an independent and unbiased moderator is
needed. A good moderator will have sufficient technical background to understand the
work product being inspected. It is important for the moderator to be objective, and not to
favor one perspective over another during the inspection meeting. In some organizations,
the moderator is never a part of the project team, and does not have a stake in the project.
However, some people have found it useful to select as moderator a team member who
will not be inspecting the document, because the moderator should have an understand-

ing of the issues discussed during the meeting. But in that case, that team member must be
willing and able to stay objective by allowing every inspector equal opportunity to bring
up defects, and by ensuring that each issue is discussed and either resolved or tagged as an
open issue.
The hardest part of the moderator’s job is to prepare the inspectors and the author for crit-
icism of the work product. When somebody writes a document, he may be uncomfortable
with the idea that it contains errors. It’s his work and, in our day-to-day lives, few of us
are used to having our work critiqued. But all documents have defects, and authors need
to get comfortable with this idea. This is by far the most challenging part of implementing
inspections: getting people comfortable with having their work criticized.

76 CHAPTER FIVE