Almost every team we've watched has two moments in a project that they describe the same way: done. The first done is when the work feels complete to the person who made it. The second done is when the work is actually ready to go out.
Between them is a gap. The gap is where most projects quietly fail.
If the gap closes too quickly, you ship something that isn't ready. If it drags on too long, you ship something that's stale, or never ship at all. Either way the outcome looks the same from outside: a team that wasn't trusted to decide when a thing was done.
A review ritual closes the gap on purpose. It doesn't try to move faster than the work. It just makes the second done cheap enough to trigger, and trustworthy enough to be believed.
The shape of the ritual varies. Some teams use a checklist that only changes when a bug sneaks past it. Some teams use a single question — who would be hurt if we shipped this tomorrow?— and work backward from there. The specifics don't matter as much as the agreement.
The gap between done and late won't close by itself. Someone has to decide where it ends.
