Ask someone to do a review? Why would you ask, other than out of politeness with the clear expectation that the answer "no" should come with a solid business re

Ask someone to do a review? Why would you ask, other than out of politeness with the clear expectation that the answer "no" should come with a solid business reason? It's their job. If someone isn't doing their job, then management has either not made it clear to them what their job is, or management needs to ask them why they aren't doing their job. To my mind, it sounds like what you need is for management to get their act together, sort out the review process and then enforce it. I worked somewhere where a reviewer was assigned before code was cut. Once the code was ready for review, the reviewer became the publicly visible person responsible for that particular feature/bugfix/whatever. People who had reviews sitting on their plate for too long would find themselves being asked questions by management about why they weren't doing their job and why they were holding things up [1]. We wouldn't put up with someone getting round to doing the implementation whenever they felt like it; likewise, we wouldn't put up with someone getting round to doing the review whenever they felt like it. As it was, this never happened, because it's part of the job. [1] There are, of course, good and bad answers to this question, much as there would be good and bad answers to the same question asked of the implementer rather than the reviewer. The answer "Oh, I just haven't got round to it, I'll get to it eventually" is as acceptable as you probably imagine.