What to expect in this article: This article tackles a pervasive frustration in software delivery: the "Sequential Trap." It argues that one of the biggest bottleneck isn't code execution speed but the organizational friction of handing work off between siloed teams (QA, Security, SRE) in a strictly linear fashion. After reading this article, you should be able to shifts the focus from efficiency (writing code faster) to efficacy (shipping value faster).
As developers, we're obsessed with optimizing our code. We'll spend hours refactoring a function to make it run 50ms faster. Yet, we often ignore the single biggest bottleneck in our process: The Sequential Handoff compounded by sprint planning. I've seen it countless times. A developer finishes a feature, tosses the ticket over to the QA column, and moves on. They've feel they have done their job. But the feature is nowhere near "done." It has just entered a void. It's sitting in a queue, waiting for QA's next sprint planning meeting. The feature languishes in a series of queues, slowly moving from team to team.
This isn't a process; it's a relay race where each runner decides to start the race two weeks after the baton is handed to them. This is the Sequential Trap, and it's how simple features take an entire quarter to ship.
What if that "simple" feature could get to production 100% faster, not by coding faster, but by thinking differently?
This isn't a fantasy. It's a skill I call strategic parallelization.
The "Sequential Trap": A 13-Week Tragedy
Let's look at a common, and painfully slow, delivery process for a single feature. We'll be generous and assume each team's actual work only takes one week. But, we'll add the realistic constraint that each team runs a 2-week sprint and won't pick up unplanned work.
| Week | Type | Item |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Development | The feature is coded. At the end of the week, the ticket is handed to QA. |
| 2, 3 | QA "Planning Gap" | The QA team's current sprint is already full. The ticket sits in their backlog, "Ready for Planning." |
| 4 | QA Sprint | The ticket is finally planned and executed. At the end of the week, it's handed to AppSec. |
| 5, 6 | AppSec "Planning Gap" | The AppSec team is in the middle of their sprint. The ticket sits in their backlog. |
| 7 | AppSec Sprint | The ticket is planned and reviewed. At the end of the week, it's handed to InfoSec. |
| 8, 9 | InfoSec "Planning Gap" | ... (you see the pattern) ... |
| 10 | InfoSec Sprint | ... |
| 11, 12 | SRE "Planning Gap" | ... |
| 13 | SRE Sprint | Infrastructure changes are made. |
Live! (Finally)
Total Time: 13 weeks (~ 1 Quarter).
The problem isn't just the 13 weeks. It's the waste. While the feature sits in the AppSec queue, the QA team has moved on. By the time SRE gets it, the original developer is deep in another project and has lost all context.
This is a 13-week process for what was probably 4 weeks of actual work. We've spent almost two months (9 weeks) just waiting in queues. This is invisible, soul-crushing waste.
This model is lazy, expensive, and slow.
The Parallel Mindset: A 4-Week Reality
Now, let's re-run that same feature, but this time, the tech lead acts as an orchestrator, not just a coder. The lead's first step is dependency mapping. "What truly blocks what?"
Development:
This is the root dependency. Nothing can be fully tested or reviewed until the code exists.
The Review Block:
QA, AppSec, and InfoSec can all maybe review the same final code parallely. They are not dependent on each other.
- Does AppSec, InfoSec need to wait for QA? Maybe / Maybe Not.
- Does AppSec need to wait for InfoSec? No.
- Does SRE need to wait for InfoSec or AppSec? No.
The Release Block:
SRE needs the approvals from all three review teams.
By identifying this, we can re-plan the entire flow.
New Optimized Plan
Week 1: Development & Proactive Planning
The dev team codes the feature.
Parallel Action (The Magic Step): On Day 1 of this week, the tech lead contacts the leads for QA, AppSec, InfoSec, and SRE.
The Message: "We are starting work on Feature X today. The code will be ready for review by the end of this week. Please reserve capacity in your next sprint (which starts Week 2) for this."
Week 2: The QA testing Sprint
The code is merged to a staging/test environment. Because QA teams knows in advance, they can pull the feature into their current sprint and work on it at the same time.
Week 3: The parallelization track
Because AppSec and InfoSec teams knows in advance, they can pull the feature into their current sprint and work on it at the same time.
Workstream 1: AppSec begins its security review (code scans, logic review).
Workstream 2: InfoSec begins its compliance review.
Week 4: Integration & Release Sprint
Feedback from all the teams comes in (e.g., end of Week 2 / start of Week 3). The dev team makes any required fixes if needed (e.g., a bug from QA, a vulnerability from AppSec). If not, feature can be handed over to SRE. The SRE team (who was also informed in Week 1) has the "Release Feature X" task in their Week 4 sprint. Once the approvals are all green, they execute the release.
Total Time: 4 weeks.
We didn't just save 9 weeks. We eliminated the "Planning Gaps" and converted a linear long review process (QA + AppSec + InfoSec) into a parallel process.
The Playbook: How to Do It
This shift doesn't just "happen." It requires a different kind of mindset focused on project flow.
Deconstruct at the Start:
Before writing a single line of code, break the feature down. Identify all the "non-dev" tasks: documentation, QA test plans, security reviews, infrastructure needs.
Map the Critical Path:
Ask the hard questions.
- "Can we write the QA test plan while the code is being written?" (Yes).
- "Can the security team review the design before the code is finished?" (Yes).
- "Can SRE provision the new database before the code is merged?" (Yes).
Identify the longest unbreakable chain of tasks—that's your critical path. Everything else should be moved off it.
Communicate Proactively (and Beat the Sprint Cycle):
This is the most critical step. Do not use tickets as your primary communication. The moment a developer throws a "done" ticket over the wall is the moment you've already lost 1-2 weeks. Sending a "heads-up" email or Slack message two weeks before you file the ticket is the magic trick. It allows other teams to manage their backlogs and "book" time for you. Your goal is to get your feature into the next sprint of all dependent teams. You transform from an interruption into a predictable partner.
The Pros and Cons of Parallelism
This approach is powerful, but it's not "free." It trades one kind of work for another.
Pros
Massive Reduction in Lead Time: This is the obvious win (13 weeks vs. 4). Features get to customers faster, which is the ultimate business goal.
Increased Team Throughput: You can ship more features per quarter.
Earlier Risk Discovery: If AppSec finds a fundamental design flaw, you find out in Week 3, not Week 7. This saves enormous amounts of rework.
Higher Engagement: Other teams are treated as partners, not as gates. They are involved early, feel respected, and can plan their own work effectively.
"Fail Fast" for Architecture: In the sequential model, if InfoSec rejects a fundamental architectural decision in Week 10, you have wasted 10 weeks of Dev and QA effort. In the parallel model, InfoSec reviews the design/code in Week 3. If there is a show-stopping compliance issue, you catch it immediately, preventing weeks of wasted effort on a feature that was never going to be approved.
Context Retention (The Efficiency Multiplier): When a developer fixes a bug 9 weeks after writing the code, they spend 50% of their time just re-reading their own code to remember how it works. By compressing the feedback loop into 3 weeks, the code remains fresh in the developer's mind, making fixes significantly faster and higher quality.
Improved Stakeholder Trust: Strategic parallelization turns delivery into a predictable, scheduled event. Being able to say, "We have booked the Security and SRE slots for Week 3 and 4," sounds far more professional and reliable than "We will send it to Security when we are done."
Cons
Higher Communication Overhead: You (or the tech lead) must spend more time planning, coordinating, and communicating. You can't just put your head down and code.
Increased Management Complexity: You're a circus ringleader juggling multiple acts. If the QA stream finds a blocker, you have to communicate that to the other parallel streams ("Pause your review, a new build is coming").
Risk of Wasted "Pre-Work": If SRE provisions a new server and the feature is then canceled or fails its AppSec review, that work was wasted. (This is a small, manageable risk that is usually outweighed by the time savings).
The "Context Switching" Tax: For the downstream teams (like AppSec), being booked "tentatively" can be annoying if the Dev team slips their deadline. If Dev is late by 3 days, they miss the reservation window in the AppSec sprint, potentially causing similar chaos like sequential model.
Conclusion: The Code is Only 20% of the Delivery
The "Art of Parallelization" ultimately teaches us one harsh truth: Writing the code is often the fastest part of software development. The real challenge—and the real time-sink—lies in the spaces between the code.
If we treat development as a linear assembly line, we are destined for the "Sequential Trap." We surrender our timelines to the mercy of other teams' backlogs and sprint cycles, watching helplessly as a 5-day coding task turns into a 9-week waiting game.
True parallelization isn't about working harder; it's about working wider. It requires:
- Visualizing the hidden queues before they happen.
- Respecting the planning cycles of your partner teams (QA, Sec, SRE) by alerting them early.
- Orchestrating concurrency so that while one team is working, no one else is waiting.
The next time you are assigned a feature, look beyond your IDE. Don't just plan your code; plan your dependencies. By mastering this art, you stop being a developer who just "finishes tickets" and become a developer who delivers value.
(Off course there is some exaggeration in the post, but you get the gist and understood the art of strategic parallelization which many devs fail to understand)
(co-author: Google Gemini Pro)
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