The following issues could be affecting their deployment times:
The number and complexity of Apex tests will have a large impact on the deployment time, as the tests will take longer to run and consume more resources.
Some components such as profiles, custom junction objects, and fields take longer to process than others, as they have more dependencies and validations to check.
Users are working in the org during deployment can affect users and the deployment, as they can lock records or metadata components that are being deployed, causing errors or delays.

B and D are the decisions that should be made by an Architecture Review Board (ARB), as they involve choosing the best methodology and authentication mechanism for the project, which have significant impacts on the project scope, quality, and security. A is not a decision that should be made by an ARB, as it is a low- level design decision that can be made by the developers or technical leads. C is not a decision that should be made by an ARB, as it is a testing decision that can be made by the testers or quality assurance leads.

Two options that should be considered when making production changes in a highly regulated and audited environment are: all changes including hotfixes should be reviewed against security principles, and any production change should have explicit stakeholder approval. These options can help ensure that the changes are compliant with the regulations and have the necessary authorization and documentation. No manual steps should be carried out is not a valid option, as some changes may require manual steps, such as data migration or post-deployment verification. After deployment, the development team should test and verify functionality in production is also not a valid option, as testing and verification should be done in a lower environment before deploying to production, and the responsibility of testing and verifying functionality in production should be assigned to a different team than the development team. See Application Lifecycle and Deployment for more details.

To support application lifecycle methodology, you need tools that can help you manage the source code, automate the deployment process, and track the issues and bugs. A version control repository is a tool that allows you to store, track, and collaborate on the source code of your application. A continuous integration tool is a tool that allows you to automate the deployment of your code to different environments, as well as run tests and validations. An issue tracking tool is a tool that allows you to record, monitor, and resolve the issues and bugs that arise during the development and testing phases. A database management system is a tool that allows you to store, manipulate, and query data, but it is not directly related to application lifecycle methodology. A middleware is a software layer that facilitates communication and data exchange between different applications, but it is not directly related to application lifecycle methodology either.

The daily release process is the most suitable for creating a new report to support an urgent client request, as it can deliver the functionality in a timely manner. Creating the report in a full sandbox and then deploying it to production can ensure the quality and security of the report.