GP-002 Friday Deployment Restrictions

Deployments after Friday lunch are prohibited unless the release fixes a more frightening problem than the one it might create.

The phrase “small change” is not accepted as evidence.

Purpose

This policy protects Notwerking Technologies, its clients and the emergency snacks cupboard from avoidable end-of-week optimism.

Friday deployments have historically been described as “quick”, “safe”, “already tested” and “basically just config”. Post-incident analysis has determined that these phrases are not technical controls.

Scope

The restriction applies to:

• Production deployments after 12:00 on Friday
• Pre-production deployments that everyone privately knows are production
• Configuration changes described as “not really a deployment”
• Database migrations where the rollback plan is “we will remember what we changed”
• Any release scheduled by someone going on annual leave within four hours

Changes made before 12:00 remain subject to normal governance, coffee availability and Si Ber’s visible suspicion.

Mandatory Pre-Approval

Any Friday deployment request must include:

• A named adult
• A rollback plan tested somewhere other than imagination
• Evidence Monday was genuinely impossible
• Confirmation that monitoring is not muted
• A written statement explaining why the change cannot wait two calendar days

The statement must not include the words “stakeholder pressure” unless accompanied by the stakeholder’s home phone number.

Risk Classification

Friday changes are automatically classified as elevated risk unless the change reduces an existing critical incident, restores coffee machine functionality or prevents Derek from approving a larger budget.

Low-risk Friday change requests may be submitted for archival purposes. They will be retained as examples of confidence.

Emergency Exceptions

Emergency deployment is permitted where:

• A live incident is already worse than the proposed fix
• No reasonable human would wait until Monday
• Tux remains in the room for the full explanation
• The deployment engineer has not said “this should be fine”

Emergency approval expires immediately after the first unexpected log entry.

Enforcement

Unauthorised Friday deployment may result in mandatory incident report authorship, weekend dashboard watching and a corrective presentation titled “Why Time Is A Control”.