Approval workflows are a company's administrative nervous system. When they work, nobody notices. When they malfunction, everything slows down — and the cost is invisible because it's spread across hundreds of small waits.
1. Map before automating
Take your five most frequent approval processes and actually trace them: who initiates, who approves, in what order, with what theoretical turnaround. The exercise almost always reveals two anomalies — approvals that serve no purpose, and single people able to block an entire chain.
2. Remove before digitising
An approval step that has never led to a rejection isn't a control, it's a formality. Automating a useless formality just makes it faster without making it useful. Remove it.
3. Define explicit rules
- Thresholds: below what amount or duration is approval automatic?
- Deadlines: after how long with no response does the request escalate?
- Backup: who approves when the usual approver is out?
- Traceability: who approved what, when — viewable without having to ask.
4. Make status visible
Most follow-up chasing exists because the requester doesn't know where their request stands. A permanently visible status removes that chasing — a time saving for everyone, achieved without changing the circuit itself.
In practice — the point to watch
A poorly configured automated process fails faster and more silently than a manual one. Always plan an alert for requests stuck past a deadline.
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