Reviewing Tool - Not Convinced to Use One

[M. Palmieri]

Just participated in an eSeminar for a documentation
reviewing tool. The eSeminar was presented well and
the tool seems solid.

However, I’m not convinced that using a documentation
reviewing tool has a big payoff. Perhaps it could
streamline workflow to some degree, but it also seems
to introduce other things that have to be managed,
such as assigning and adjusted the statuses of
individual comments.

This tool sends out an e-mail or other notification
each time a different reviewer submits changes to a
draft. I anticipate that reviewers would either become
irritated at yet another e-mail finding its way to
their inbox, or maybe the notifications wouldn’t get a
high priority after a while. (Frequency of
notifications may be customizable; I’m not sure.)

Especially for a relatively small group of reviewers,
it seems that placing a draft on a shared drive might
work as well as using a reviewing tool. The format for
a draft placed on the shared drive could allow
reviewers to add comments directly to the draft.

One risk to the shared drive approach is that the
draft on the shared drive could get corrupted or
accidentally deleted. 

Any thoughts on using a reviewing tool? Or what you've
found to be useful reviewing methods in general?

Regards,
Marie