SDLC Friction Elimination Guide
Software delivery is a friction-accumulation machine. Every handoff from requirements to deployment drops context. This guide eliminates that loss systematically.
Requirements Intake Protocol
Every requirement must carry: business intent (why), acceptance criteria (what success looks like), and explicit non-goals (what is out of scope). BA → Dev handoffs without all three create rework. Enforce this at intake, not at code review.
Eliminating the BA–Dev Gap
The highest-friction point in most SDLCs is the BA-to-Dev handoff. Eliminate it by moving BA into the dev cycle — not as a gatekeeper, but as a co-creator. Daily async context drops (loom, structured doc, not meetings) replace the clarification loop.
PR Review as Signal, Not Gate
PR reviews that block delivery for >4 hours are friction events. Design reviews for async: reviewers get context via the PR description (not meetings), respond within one business day, and approve/request changes in one pass. No back-and-forth threads.
Zero-Handoff Deployment
Developer to production should have zero human handoffs. CI/CD pipelines own quality gates. Feature flags own release timing. On-call owns production decisions. Any approval step in this chain is a friction event — audit each one for necessity.
Post-Delivery Friction Capture
After each sprint or release, run a 15-minute friction retrospective: What slowed us down? Where did we re-do work? What question took >4 hours to answer? Log each as a friction event. Triage weekly. Eliminate one class per sprint.
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