What is a Design Review?

A Design Review (review of design decisions) is a formal discussion of a system's architecture and design, held before or during development. Its goal is to evaluate the quality of design decisions, making sure the chosen architecture is reliable, clear, scalable, and matches business and technology requirements.

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#Why a Design Review is held

Design is a stage where a mistake can cost months of work. A Design Review is needed to find weak points before the code is written. It helps to:

• identify architectural risks and performance bottlenecks;
• check whether the decisions meet security and scalability requirements;
• make sure the team understands the system structure the same way;
• align standards, technologies, and dependencies.

It is a way to prevent future problems, not to fix them after the fact.

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#What a Design Review includes

1. Design presentation The developer or architect shows the architecture diagram, the main modules, their connections, the chosen technologies, and key decisions. Data flows, APIs, integration points, database schemas, and deployment schemes are demonstrated.
2. Discussion and questions Participants ask clarifying questions:

• Why was this particular architecture chosen?
• What happens as load grows?
• How are fault tolerance and security ensured?
• Are there plans for testing and monitoring?

3. Analysis of alternatives and risks Possible weak points, technical debt, and future limitations are considered. Sometimes participants propose alternative solutions or tools.
4. Recording the results After the discussion, a document or checklist is created with notes, decisions, and owners. Based on it, changes are made to the architecture or technical documentation.

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#Who takes part

• Architect or lead developer - presents the design decisions;
• Tech Lead and developers - assess feasibility;
• DevOps engineers - analyze infrastructure aspects;
• QA engineers - assess testability;
• Security specialists (when needed) - check compliance with security requirements.

Sometimes a Project Manager or Product Owner is present, if business risks and impact on timelines are discussed.

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#When it is held

• before active development begins (checking the project's architecture);
• for major changes to an existing product's architecture;
• when integrating new systems, technologies, or services.

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#Conclusion

A Design Review is a tool for architectural quality control. It allows the team to confirm in advance that design decisions are well thought out, feasible, and agreed upon before the team invests time and resources into implementing them.