Documentation / QueryTek Review glossary / Review Cycle
A review cycle is one complete pass of material through evaluation: accepted at intake, assessed against a standard, escalated if reviewers disagree, and closed with a recorded outcome. Defining it as a bounded cycle is what makes review measurable rather than an open-ended activity.
The cycle has a defined start and a defined end, and both matter. It starts when material is accepted with its standard attached — not when it arrives, since unassigned material is not yet in review. It ends when an outcome is recorded, not when a reviewer stops working.
Between those points, four things happen.
Assignment. Work is routed to reviewers qualified for that standard. Qualification is part of the design, since a rubric applied by someone unfamiliar with the domain produces consistent-looking output that does not mean what it appears to.
Assessment. Reviewers apply the rubric and record findings as annotations and scorecard entries, so the conclusion carries its supporting evidence rather than standing alone.
Escalation, where needed. Disagreement or an unclear case routes to adjudication and returns with a documented resolution. Escalation is a normal path, not an exception — a process with no escalation route resolves disagreements informally, which means invisibly.
Closure. The outcome is recorded against the material, completing the cycle and updating the document's lifecycle state.
Bounding the cycle is what makes measurement possible. Turnaround time is the elapsed span of a cycle, and it can only be computed when start and end are unambiguous. The same boundary makes capacity planning and escalation rates real numbers rather than impressions.
A document may go through several cycles. Material returned for revision and resubmitted enters a new cycle rather than reopening the closed one, which keeps each outcome tied to the version it assessed.
Review programs that cannot say where a cycle starts and ends cannot report on themselves. Progress becomes anecdotal, and commitments about turnaround are estimates rather than measurements.
A bounded cycle also keeps outcomes attached to what was actually assessed, which is what makes a completed review defensible later.
QueryTek Review structures work as bounded cycles with recorded outcomes and a defined escalation path, so progress and turnaround are measured rather than estimated. Routing rules and reviewer qualification models are handled through engagement setup.
