Study 02 · GitLab work data

How long work waits, by role

Forum posts say what hurts. This measures what happens: merge requests at GitLab, which works in public, by the role of the person who opened them. Designed and committed before any data was pulled.

105,397

merge requests from 19 Oct 2024, 2,400 sampled for approval times · roles for 0 team members, stored only as salted hashes

The tests

Each was written with the result that would disprove it, before pulling.

G1 · ran 19 Oct 2026supported

Waiting for the first review is a large part of how long a change takes, for every role.

Project	Sampled	To first approval	To merge	Share
Handbook	1,200	20 h	16 h	128%
Product (gitlab-org/gitlab)	1,200	23 h	2.4 days	41%

Disproved if: Median time to first review is under 10% of median time to merge, for merged MRs in the sample, in all three projects.

G2 · ran 19 Oct 2026disproved

Non-engineers' changes wait longer than engineers' changes of a similar size in the same project (the Blast Radius claim, measured).

Engineers: 22 h · 142 MRs
Non-engineers: 13 h · 453 MRs
Ratio: 0.59x · 95% interval 0.33x to 0.93x

Disproved if: In the handbook and marketing-site projects, the median time to first review for MRs by non-engineers (design, product, marketing, other) is no more than 1.25x that of engineers, comparing MRs that change 3 files or fewer.

G3 · ran 19 Oct 2026supported

Changes that need reviewers from more than one role take clearly longer than changes reviewed by a single role (approval chains slow work).

Reviewed within one role: 3.1 days · 56,073 MRs
Reviewers from two or more roles: 5.3 days · 6,490 MRs
Ratio: 1.7x · 95% interval 1.63x to 1.78x

Disproved if: Median time to merge for merged MRs whose reviewers span two or more roles is no more than 1.25x that of MRs reviewed within one role, in gitlab-org/gitlab.

Handbook: waiting for first approval

Small merged MRs (3 files or fewer), median hours until someone other than the author approved.

engineering22 h

design6.3 h

product18 h

marketing24 h

other11 h

unknown27 h

Show as table

Median time to first approval, handbook small MRs, by author role
engineering	22 h	142 sampled MRs
design	6.3 h	143 sampled MRs
product	18 h	129 sampled MRs
marketing	24 h	69 sampled MRs
other	11 h	112 sampled MRs
unknown	27 h	100 sampled MRs

Product: waiting for first approval

Merged MRs in gitlab-org/gitlab, median hours until first approval, by who opened them.

engineering36 h

design19 h

product28 h

marketing7.0 h

other34 h

unknown46 h

Show as table

Median time to first approval, product repo, by author role
engineering	36 h	197 sampled MRs
design	19 h	197 sampled MRs
product	28 h	181 sampled MRs
marketing	7.0 h	181 sampled MRs
other	34 h	161 sampled MRs
unknown	46 h	183 sampled MRs

Who opens merge requests

Every MR in the window. “Unknown” means the author isn't on the current team page.

Project	Author role	MRs	Merged	Median to merge
Handbook	engineering	4,635	3,886	27 h
Handbook	design	245	215	7.2 h
Handbook	product	595	524	19 h
Handbook	marketing	569	479	1.1 h
Handbook	other	2,963	2,349	8.7 h
Handbook	unknown	2,978	2,308	16 h
Product (gitlab-org/gitlab)	engineering	61,698	49,311	3.1 days
Product (gitlab-org/gitlab)	design	2,219	1,832	3.1 days
Product (gitlab-org/gitlab)	product	924	684	2.6 days
Product (gitlab-org/gitlab)	marketing	3,597	3,323	18 h
Product (gitlab-org/gitlab)	other	1,556	1,206	2.4 days
Product (gitlab-org/gitlab)	unknown	17,274	12,134	3.5 days