Top Strategies to Encourage Pull Request Participation
And why it’s crucial that everyone pulls their weight
If you work in software development, you’re likely familiar with pull requests (PRs) or code reviews (CRs). Reviewing pull requests is an important part of the work of a software developer, but not everyone always feels like doing them. There are a lot of reasons why a team might struggle to have good PR participation, such as intimidated junior developers, burnt out senior developers, or just plain forgetfulness.
Good pull request review participation would mean that everyone on the team actively reviews the code of others. There should be a good balance, without one or a few people doing the majority of the reviews. Reviews should be done consciously and carefully. The reviewer needs to take the time to understand the code in order to identify any potential bugs or improvements.
Oftentimes, senior developers tend to review more than junior developers. It can also happen where you have one person reviewing the majority of the pull requests, leaving them feeling burnt out from reviews. Encouraging PR participation is a tricky can of worms, and there’s no solution that will be the right one for every team.
Here is a collection of strategies to increase pull review participation in your team.
