Field note · Approvals
When one approval becomes a bottleneck.
Approvals exist for a reason. The problem is not that someone checks the work. It is when routine work repeatedly waits for one person even when the risk, value or exception does not justify the same level of attention every time.
Separate routine from judgement
Do not treat every case as equally risky.
Elekevu practice note · Reviewed 28 September 2026
Separate the control from the queue
Removing an approval just because it is slow can create a different problem. Before changing it, establish what the approval is meant to protect: money, quality, safety, customer commitment, policy, or something else.
Then look at the queue itself. A useful control can still be badly designed if every case follows the same route regardless of risk.
What this looks like in practice
A team completes a routine piece of work and sends it to the same manager who also handles unusual, high-value or risky cases. The manager may be making a genuine judgement on a small number of items, but most of the queue waits for confirmation that a known rule has already been followed.
The visible symptom is delay. The underlying design question is whether all those cases really require the same authority and attention.
Find out what truly needs a decision
Many approval queues mix routine confirmations with genuine exceptions. The operating question is whether the approver is making a judgement each time or simply confirming that a known rule has been followed.
- What risk or decision is this approval meant to control?
- Which cases are routine, and which genuinely need judgement?
- What information does the approver need before deciding?
- Can authority be delegated within clear limits without weakening the control?
- Can anyone see what is waiting, for how long, and why?
What to observe before redesigning the approval
Sample a small run of cases rather than looking only at the oldest item in the queue. Record why each case needed approval, how long it waited, what the approver actually checked and whether the outcome differed from the rule the team expected.
- Separate routine confirmations from cases that required real judgement.
- Measure waiting time separately from the time actually spent reviewing the case.
- Note which missing information causes the approver to send work back.
- Identify whether a threshold or exception rule could safely remove routine cases from the queue.
When a deeper diagnosis is worth it
The bottleneck becomes material when customer commitments, payments, procurement or operational work repeatedly pause behind one person; when the approver is frequently unavailable; or when teams create informal shortcuts to get urgent work through.
Those workarounds are useful evidence. They often reveal where the formal control no longer matches the risk of the case.
The answer may be a rule, not automation
A threshold, delegation rule, clearer exception path or better queue visibility may solve more than automating the existing approval. In other cases, a workflow tool can make a sound control easier to operate.
The distinction matters. Automating a poorly defined approval can make the queue faster without making the decision better.