designreview

Design review is a structured assessment of a design artifact to verify that it satisfies system or product requirements and conforms to applicable standards. The goal is to identify defects, gaps, and risks early in the development lifecycle, reducing rework and cost.

Design reviews can occur at different levels, such as preliminary design reviews and critical design reviews, and they may be formal or informal depending on the organization and domain. In software and hardware projects, review boards typically include designers, engineers, project managers, quality assurance personnel, and sometimes external stakeholders. The main artifacts under review include design specifications, interface definitions, architecture diagrams, and traceability matrices.

Process: planning and preparation, collecting evidence, conducting the review meeting, and recording findings. Review criteria usually cover requirements traceability, performance and safety requirements, feasibility, interoperability, maintainability, and compliance with standards. Outcomes range from approval to conditional approval, requiring specified changes, or rejection with a plan for redesign. Action items, updated artifacts, and risk assessments commonly follow.

Best practices: use a defined checklist, ensure independence of reviewers, limit scope, require evidence and objective data, and make findings traceable to requirements. Establish decision authority and ensure timely closure of actions. Tools such as issue trackers, version control, and design management systems support documentation and follow-up.

Standards and applications: design reviews are referenced in software and systems engineering as part of lifecycle processes. Standards such as IEEE 1028, ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288, and industry-specific guidelines describe roles, artifacts, and decision criteria to improve consistency and defensibility of the design evaluation.