Async Code Reviews Are Choking Your Throughput
summary
Analysis of 40,000+ PRs shows async reviews create high-latency, low-throughput feedback: engagement per 100 LOC falls as PR size grows, and small PRs incur exponentially higher review cost per line. One example team pushes 500 merged PRs over six months while those PRs accumulate roughly 28 months of wait time across the pipeline. Switching to co-creation — pair/mob programming with continuous review — yields dramatic integration speed (example: 2.3 minutes median to trunk, 107 merges in 9h20m) and effectively removes review wait time.
AI-written summary · about
chapters (10)
- 0:00Introduction and context
- 3:15How async code reviews work
- 7:08Study insights on PR engagement
- 13:46Wait time impact on throughput
- 20:14Small PRs and system costs
- 23:03Causal loop diagram explained
- 27:34Flow efficiency and PR size
- 34:04Alternatives to async reviews
- 41:24Continuous code reviews
- 44:10Closing and Q&A
related talks
57mAsync Code Reviews Are Choking Your Company’s Throughput
27mAsync non-blocking Code Reviews
42m7 Metrics to Accelerate Delivery without Damaging Culture
38mHow to Optimize Non-Coding Time
23mAsync non-blocking code reviews
29mBreaking the PR Review Bottleneck
15mHow to Merge Your PR in 10 Seconds? Have You Tried Mob Code Review?
28mAsync non-blocking code reviews