Reviews can be formal or informal. They can be technical or managerial. Managerial reviews usually focus on project management and project status. The role of project status meetings is discussed in Chapter 9. In this chapter we will focus on technical reviews. These are used to: • verify that a software artifact meets its specification; • to detect defects; and • check for compliance to standards. Readers may not realize that informal technical reviews take place very frequently. For example, each time one software engineer asks another to evaluate a piece of work whether in the office, at lunch, or over a beer, a review takes place.