This course is a result of 25 years of consulting project management experience, including running lots of document walkthroughs on numerous projects at various organizations. We will start this course with several real-life examples of what happens when mistakes are not detected early and allowed to “live” until the very end of the project. We will also examine the “Cost of Mistake” theory and observe how the cost of defect increases in size almost exponentially over the course of project life.

Subsequently, we will examine the key stages of document reviews including planning the review, preparing for the review, conducting the review, performing the rework and analyzing the rework. We will also distinguish three types of reviews available for project managers: “proper format” peer reviews, technical inspections and customer walkthroughs.

We will continue this course with an analysis of what document should be reviewed and who should participate in each type of review. Next, the course will provide you with information regarding the frequency of reviews, their suggested duration and the list of participants.

Afterwards, we will examine a potential list of questions that may arise during the reviews and how the project manager should handle them. We will also discuss the things to be on the lookout for, including completeness, consistency, correctness, feasibility, traceability, ambiguity, necessity and verifiability.

The course will also provide you with a cheat sheet of dangerous words that should not be present in any project documents. Finally, the course will discuss how to impose measurability on the project requirements even in the most difficult situations.