We were shipping slower and slower, everyone waiting on review approvals. Then we flipped a switch: reviewers don't have to be synchronous. If you're blocked on feedback, you self-merge after 24h with a detailed comment explaining your decisions. Forces you to write better PRs because you can't just ping someone on Slack.

Sounds chaotic. It's not. Our deploy velocity doubled. People actually read code now instead of rubber-stamping because they're not context-switching every five minutes. The trick is having clear merge criteria up front so people aren't guessing.