Deploy on a Friday?

“Deploy on a Friday? Are you mad?”

Advising against deploying on Fridays is a classic hype-generating mantra: dramatic, memorable, and often repeated without much examination.

That’s a common reaction, and it’s completely understandable. But those of us suggesting Friday deployments aren’t doing it to be provocative. We do it because we’ve seen what it looks like when teams feel safe enough to do it.

We’ve lived through the pain of not being able to. And we’ve seen the benefits of moving past that fear.

This isn’t a call to arms. No one is saying, “Drop everything and push to prod this Friday.” What it is is an invitation. An invitation to look at where you are today and ask, “What would need to be true for us to deploy on a Friday without fear?” Because if the very idea fills your team with anxiety, that’s not a sign to avoid it. It’s a signal that something’s broken or brittle, and that deserves your attention.

The fear around Friday deployments doesn’t come from nowhere. It’s shaped by years of late-night incidents, production outages no one wanted to touch before the weekend, frozen pipelines that cost teams their momentum, and cultures that treated shipping as high-stakes and high-risk.

I’ve been there.

That’s why I care about this. And I’m aware of how many invisible blockers stand in the way: fear of being blamed if something goes wrong, a belief that “this is just how we do things,” lack of confidence in the release process, unclear ownership, or simply the absence of good tooling and observability.

Encouraging Friday deployments isn’t about recklessness. It’s about designing systems and workflows that are resilient, observable, well-tested, and trusted; the kind where a deployment is just another step, no matter the day. If we avoid even thinking about that possibility, we’re accepting the status quo, and letting fear drive our decisions.

So no, you don’t need to deploy this Friday. But imagine a world where you could, and it wasn’t a big deal. Then ask yourself what stands in the way. That’s where the real work begins.

Originally posted on LinkedIn.