A Formal Technical Review (FTR) is a software quality assurance activity performed by our software engineers, system engineers (and others). The objectives of the FTR are:
In addition, the FTR serves as a training ground, enabling your team members and junior engineers to observe different approaches to software analysis, design and implementation. The FTR also serves to promote backup and continuity because a number of your team members become familiar with parts of the software that they may not have otherwise seen.
Our FTR process is actually a class of reviews which includes walkthroughs, inspections, round-robin reviews and other small group technical assessments of software. Each FTR is conducted as a meeting and will be successful only if it is properly planned, controlled and attended. Our FTRs involve a structured encounter where a group of technical personnel analyzes your artifacts in order to improve both the quality of the product and the review process.
Formal techniques are not necessarily mathematical specification languages, but can be graphical techniques as well, provided that the syntax and semantics of these techniques are precisely described. Object Oriented Analysis methods which primarily use graphical specification techniques. Despite of several advances in automated verification and validation, human review of software artifacts is still a unique important method for software quality improvement.