> You have a point in that bureaucracy can needlessly get in the way of meaningful change. What a good early design doc can do is turn meaningless changes (e.g

> You have a point in that bureaucracy can needlessly get in the way of meaningful change. What a good early design doc can do is turn meaningless changes (e.g., doing a project for the sake of promo) into meaningful non- or minimal change. The best code is the one not written. And at least in my area (Core), the design docs only go through anything like a formal process when it's a larger project that would take years or multiple engineers. Other areas are probably different.