Design Reviews That Work
Oh, the “design review”. Depending on your company’s culture, a design review may be a glazed-over rubberstamping exercise or a grueling technical critique.
Whether it is one of these extremes or somewhere in between, there’s a good chance people aren’t getting much value from the meetings. These are the top three reasons I’ve seen torpedo the design review process, and a few simple ways to fix them.
Your cross-functional team doesn’t feel empowered. Design Reviews typically invite representatives from all functional groups, but how often do you hear feedback on a prototype design from your customer support manager? What input does your marketing lead provide during design transfer reviews? I’m not advocating a mandate that “everyone in the meeting must participate”, but I do caution against creating a culture of only speaking when your specific area is impacted. Have a private conversation before your next design review with one person who you *don’t* expect to participate much, and plant a seed with them while ensuring they feel supported by you to express themselves. Over time, you will see dialogue opening up and creative ideas begin to flow during these meetings.
The technical team doesn’t understand the point of design reviews. “The requirements are documented, the test cases are approved, all the results passed. Can we leave now?” This is a typical sentiment from engineers who are skeptical of the value of design reviews. One of the best cures for this is to have engineers sit in on audits, whether internal or external. Witnessing the “audit dance” between an auditor and a compliance lead can do wonders in helping engineers understand how critical it is to perform and document robust design reviews.
Your quality assurance personnel aren’t familiar enough with the product. Effective participation from QA requires a person who understands the intended use of the device, the technological principles upon which it operates, and the steps necessary to manufacture or deploy the product. This is a tall order for a position that isn’t always a technical expert. To combat this, have your QA folks “rotate” through different functions periodically. Sitting in on a user discovery call with your product manager, observing code reviews with developers, anything you can do to help them get real-world awareness of the user needs and design requirements.
Design Reviews have the potential to be much more than a box-checking activity. This is an opportunity to bring together different voices and opinions to add real value to the product, and to build a team that can support the designers and engineers long after the product has been transferred.