"Judgment erodes when rules replace responsibility.
Good standards are senior-safe because they remove negotiation. In a design review where dissent is real but time is short, they make the bar legible and the exception path explicit.
In a design review where dissent is real but time is short, the fastest path is to skip the uncomfortable conversation. That buys speed today and inconsistency tomorrow. A standard you cannot apply in one pass is not a standard; it is a preference disguised as governance. Write it down because otherwise two reasonable engineers will execute two different interpretations, and the system will call it “miscommunication.”
Hyman G. Rickover is useful here because it forces precision. Write the standard in enforceable language, then name the only acceptable exception signal and who can approve it. Make the exception rare so the standard stays real.