Inspection in software engineering, refers to peer review of any work product by trained individuals who look for defects using a well defined process. The traditional software inspection process involves a moderator planning the inspection, inspectors reviewing the artifact, a team meeting to discuss and register defects, passing the defects to the author for rework so they can be corrected, and a final follow-up evaluation by the moderator on the need of a new inspection.

M. E. Fagan, “Design and code inspections to reduce errors in program development,” IBM Systems Journal, vol. 15, no. 3, pp. 182–211, 1976. [IBM Systems Journal]