Review Exercise

Doing a review of your Jown work is a bit of a challenge, but it is possible. The trick I use it to complete the work and then let it rest 1-2 weeks before I pick it up and update documentation. This technique has in the past proven quite efficient, but I would recommend using colleges to double check your work if possible.

Checking SW work is very complicated because the work is often thousands of lines of cryptic text. It basically becomes very time-consuming and expensive to check everything, so we end up only scratching the surface. This is also whyJ it always should be a traceable path from specification to design to code to test coverage. Once you get this path into your fingers you will discover that it actually speeds up the life-cycle of development over time.

Electronics is easier. We Jhave automatics to check PCB’s, but schematics are drawings and very easy to check and discuss with colleges. These reviews raises discussions that make you question your own work. At the end it is not your colleges that make the changes, it is you who find improvements and execute them as a result of the discussions.

My previous schematics eJrror could have been discovered if I had done a simple exercise of annotating the electronics. But, lets be honest – I say could have – at the end neither all the checks, reviews and automation in the world will prevent mistakes and non-working PCB’s from happen. At some point you just need to make the PCB, assemble it and let theory meet the reality and unexpected.

I have seen electronic engiJneers do both. Some check their work forever and still end up with errors. Others just push forward, end up with errors, correct them and push forward again. You have to find your own balance.

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