How do I get my coworkers to merge in their approved PRs faster?

Question

Hi,

I often hear from here that you should strive to land code as fast as possible to make a meaningful impact and get feedback from your users. I follow this mantra pretty closely as I see those story points as free baskets that make my team look good (because objectively, we're getting stuff done), but it seems many engineers don't subscribe to this philosophy. Sometimes, I see PRs that have been QA'd and approved linger around for days to weeks... It feels like a problem, but it also feels like I'm the only one who brings it up. What is the best course of action?

Rahul Pandey · Accepted Answer

Figure out a workaround**: change your workflow so you're not reliant on your colleagues to land their code so quickly. e.g. you could have their diff as a dependent diff using stacked diffs. Bring this up in a structured way**: if you think others on the team can also benefit, put together some data on how the avg time between PR approval and merging. This feels like something which will be compelling (and the whole team will thank you) if you combine data along with anecdotes of the impact this culture change could make.

How do I get my coworkers to merge in their approved PRs faster?

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