Running a review among several reviewers

A review involving several readers needs an agreed process and a way to turn their comments into decisions about the draft. The parts divide by the task: establishing the process, briefing reviewers, organising comments and resolving disagreement. Individual critique, quality control, collaboration software, wider project management and document-specific review requirements belong to neighbouring concerns.

• Judge a review process by whether it is defined, resourced and enforced — a written process, tools, training, staging, planning and enforcement, working with challenging reviewers, and choosing the route comments take
• Tell reviewers what to focus on, by role, by document and by stage — setting each reviewer’s focus, distinguishing review from quality control, and eliciting specific, actionable and relevant comments
• Organise the comments so that they can be processed — collecting and routing comments, using addressee, rating and status tags, keeping replies together, and the benefits and costs of a tagged system
• Resolve the comments when reviewers disagree — understanding conflicting priorities, discussing important points in a call or meeting, negotiating and recording decisions