In this episode of Continuous Delivery Office Hours, Tony Kelly, Bob Walker, and Steve Fenton discuss the purpose and common pitfalls of software change approvals. They argue that strict, manual change approval processes are often just a reflex to past organizational trauma and an attempt to have "humans on the hook" to blame, rather than a valuable safety measure.
Relying on excessive bureaucracy, like formal monthly review boards or demanding multiple manual sign-offs, significantly reduces deployment throughput and, according to DORA research, actually makes systems less stable. Instead, the experts advocate automating the vast majority of checks, like tests, linting, and scanning for dangerous database commands, so that human reviewers step in only to evaluate a filtered subset of complex or high-risk changes.
Effective change management requires small review requests and daily co-ordination rather than formal change approvals.
Listen to find out more about:
- Change approval processes are often based on past organizational trauma
- Most checks should be automated
- Excessive manual approvals wreck throughput and reduce stability
- If you review pull requests, they should be small