Thanks for the response and the clarification. Witnesses are not necessary... I was just curious where this sort of stuff happens. I don't go to many conferences myself.

Totally agree with the point of your article btw. I've strived to create these systems in my own company (and I think I've delivered on steps 1 and 2 - step 3 indicates an area for improvement for us, though).

In fact, I'm going to forward this article to a couple of people on my team to discuss if we're doing this well enough. Thanks for writing it.