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ABSTRACT

Although many new software design techniques have emerged in the past 15 years, there have been few changes to the procedures for reviewing the designs produced using these techniques. This paper describes an improved technique, based on the following ideas, for reviewing designs. The efforts of each reviewer should be focussed on those aspects of the design that suit his experience and expertise. The characteristics of the reviewers needed should be explicitly specified before reviewers are selected. Reviewers should be asked to make positive assertions about the design rather than simply allowed to point out defects. The designers pose questions to the reviewers, rather than vice versa. These questions are posed on a set of questionnaires that requires careful study of some aspect of the design. Interaction between designers and reviewers occurs in small meetings involving 2 - 4 people rather than meetings of large groups. Illustrations of these ideas drawn from the application of active design reviews to the Naval Research Laboratory's Software Cost Reduction Project are included.

REFERENCES

• 1: K. Heninger, J. Kallander, D. L. Parnas, and J. Shore, "Software Requirements for the A-7E Aircraft," Memo Report 3876, Naval Research Laboratory (November 1978).
• 2: D. Freedman and G. Weinberg, Ethnotechnical Review Handbook, Second Edition, ETHNOTECH, INC. (1979).
• 3: M. Fagan, "Design and Code Inspection and Process Control in the Development of Programs," TR 21.572, IBM System Development Division (December 1974).
• 4: P. C. Clements, R. A. Parker, D. L. Parnas, J. E. Shore, and K. H. Britton, "A Standard Organization for Specifying Abstract Interfaces," NRL Report 8815, Naval Research Laboratory (June 1984).
• 5: D. L. Parnas , H. Würges, Response to undesired events in software systems, Proceedings of the 2nd international conference on Software engineering, p.437-446, October 13-15, 1976, San Francisco, California, United States
• 6: R. A. Parker, K. L. Heninger, D. L. Parnas, and J. E. Shore, "Abstract Interface Specifications for the A-7E Device Interface Module," Memo Report 4385, Naval Research Laboratory (November 1980).

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING

Additional Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING

General Terms:
Design, Theory

Keywords:
design reviews, information hiding, software design process, software engineering