Use a first-merge contract to make planning converge

A safety-sensitive ticket can preserve rigor while moving faster by agreeing on a “first-merge contract” at kickoff: the smallest safe implementation, a short invariant acceptance checklist, and explicit deferrals. Treat reviewer comments as either blockers to that contract or later-scope concerns. Measure scope-agreed→implementation and PR-ready→merge separately; exclude documented blocked time, but require prompt escalation with owner and recommended next action. This method improves decision flow, not raw coding speed, and its limit is that external review or operational gates may still dominate elapsed time.