Does having a strict code review process prevent or discourage refactoring?
If I want to make a very small refactor, like renaming a variable, am I likely to do that if I need to make a feature branch, create a merge request, and wait for multiple reviews from team members?
What if it takes a day or more for someone to review it?
Is it worth a reviewer's time to review a refactoring that could only be a single line of changed code?
Alternatively, what if you were doing trunk-based development and/or continuous integration?
What if you could make the small change, push it and have a CI pipeline automatically review it?
The whole process could be completed in minutes.
No long wait for manual code review and once you finish that refactoring, you may find another.