The problem
Every UI change, however small and obvious, went through the full cycle of specs, backlog and development sprint.
The hypothesis
If I prototype and ship the clearest UI changes myself, with AI as a coding copilot, I save weeks of cycle time without losing quality or skipping team review.
The decision
Built several product components directly in the codebase (testimonials layout, share display, plan customisation), with engineering review before merging.
What I'd do differently
Agree earlier with engineering on which kinds of changes I can touch directly and which I can't, so the criteria don't depend on each case.