How We Made Our Software Releases 5x Faster by Finding the Real Constraint

Recently, one of my development teams was struggling to deploy code to production quickly. Releases were taking longer than they should, and the delay was starting to affect how fast we could deliver value to our stakeholders.

I’d just finished reading The Phoenix Project and The Goal, both of which focus on finding and removing constraints in complex systems. Inspired by that approach, I decided to treat our deployment process the same way: as a system that could be understood, measured, and improved.

Mapping the Flow

I worked with the team to map the entire deployment process end to end. Every step, every handoff, and every dependency was documented. Seeing the whole system laid out visually made the bottlenecks obvious.

We found several constraints, but the biggest ones were:

• Cross-team dependencies that slowed us down and created unnecessary coordination overhead.
• Outdated tooling that made automation difficult.
• Weak documentation, which made it hard for our production support team to take ownership confidently.

Removing the Constraints

By modernizing parts of our DevOps toolchain and rethinking how we built components, we were able to remove or reduce many of those dependencies. We also invested time in improving documentation, not as an afterthought but as a core part of the delivery process. That made handoffs smoother and gave our production support team much more confidence in what was being deployed.

As a result, we no longer carry the same “release tax” we once did. Deployments that used to be stressful, large, and infrequent are now small, fast, and routine.

The Outcome

We’re now releasing to production five times faster than before. The change has completely altered how the team thinks about delivering value. Instead of bundling features into large, infrequent releases, they’ve shifted to smaller, iterative changes that reach users faster and carry less risk.

The benefits go beyond speed. Stakeholders see results sooner, the team gets faster feedback, and everyone feels more confident in our process.

Takeaway

The key lesson? Don’t just look at symptoms like “slow deployments.” Take the time to understand the system end to end. Once you see where the true constraints are, improvement becomes obvious and powerful.