A healthy code review culture can transform a team. It improves code quality, spreads knowledge, and helps developers grow. But good code reviews don’t just happen. They come from habits, collaboration, and curiosity. Today I would like to share a few practical guidelines that can make your team’s review process smoother, more meaningful, and far more effective.
Don’t Be Afraid to Ask Questions
One of the biggest misconceptions about code review is that you’re expected to know everything. In reality, questions are often the most valuable part of a review. Ask questions whenever something isn’t clear. If a piece of logic seems surprising or if you’re not sure why a particular pattern was chosen, it's always better to ask a question then simply move on silently.
Questions help you understand the change, push the author to clarify, and sometimes reveal areas where the code or documentation could be improved. Curiosity strengthens the team more than silent approval ever could.
Prioritize Code Reviews Over Your Own Tasks
We all want to get things done. That's why it’s always tempting to rather focus on your own work than your peer's. In reality, tasks waiting for code review are closer to being finished than the tasks you’re just starting and they usually should have higher priority.
By prioritizing code reviews, you help keep the development pipeline flowing. Your peer can merge their work, move forward, and unblock other parts of the system. It’s a small shift in priority that dramatically increases team throughput.
I think it's really important to keep in mind. When we stop reviewing our peers code, we simply end up with a high pile or pull requests waiting for being merged. It usually leads to more merge conflicts, more stress just before the release, and more headaches.
Use a Checklist to Stay Consistent
Even experienced developers miss things. That's why a checklist can help ensure consistency and reduces mental load. A good review checklist might include things like:
Are there unit tests for the new or changed functionality?
Does the code follow the project’s style guide?
Are there potential race conditions or concurrency issues?
Is caching used correctly, or could it cause stale data or memory bloat?
Are there strong reference cycles?
Are all new strings localized properly? Maybe some strings are still missing? Did we make sure someone from Product/Marketing will take care of it?
Maybe we have more external dependencies in our team we should keep in mind before we go live with the new changes?
Are accessibility identifiers added where needed?
A checklist makes the review process thorough without being overwhelming. Usually it makes sense to share a short checklist with the team and adopt it as a regular step in your development process. But nothing stops you from having your own, more detailed list if you like so.
Keep Pull Requests Small
Huge pull requests are stressful. Both to write and to review. They slow everything down and make it hard to spot issues. Reviewing bigger pull request takes more time, and it's way more challenging from the start.
Whenever possible, work iteratively. Break larger tasks into smaller PRs: setup, core logic, UI layer, tests, cleanup, etc. Small PRs are easier to understand, faster to review, and far less likely to introduce bugs.
When we work on feature branches, and we see the feature we're working on is simply too big for a single pull request, it might make sense to open a base branch where we point our iterations. Then when the whole feature is done under the base feature branch (so we merged Part 1 and Part 2), we can create a new combined pull request pointing develop.
develop
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+--- XYZ-123-My-New-Feature-Base
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+--- XYZ-123-My-New-Feature-Part-1
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+--- XYZ-123-My-New-Feature-Part-2
Avoid “LGTM” Without Any Comments
Sometimes a PR really does look perfect. But adding only a “Looks Good To Me” comment can feel impersonal and unhelpful.
Instead, highlight something you genuinely liked: a clean abstraction, a thoughtful test, a well-documented function.
Positive feedback matters. It reinforces good patterns, encourages craftsmanship, and makes code reviews feel like collaboration rather than gatekeeping.
Be Curious
If you’re not sure where to start with a review, that’s okay. Use your checklist. Ask the author to walk you through the changes. Start with the high-level overview, and then go deeper.
Curiosity creates learning opportunities. Code review is one of the best ways to grow your skills because it exposes you to patterns, ideas, and solutions you wouldn’t encounter on your own. Being curious is not a weakness but actually it’s one of the strongest habits you can develop as an engineer.
Final Thoughts
Code review isn’t just about finding bugs. It’s about building a culture of clarity, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
By asking questions, keeping PRs small, using a checklist, giving meaningful feedback, and supporting one another your team can turn the review process into a powerful engine for quality and growth.
Strong code reviews make strong teams. And strong teams ship better software.
This article was originally published on my blog: https://michalcichon.github.io/software-development/2025/12/12/effective-code-reviews-habits-that-make-teams-stronger.html
If you enjoyed this post, check out my other articles on software development, teamwork, and best practices for building better code.
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