Why Approvals Are Always the Bottleneck

In most organizations, the slowest part of a workflow is not execution.

It’s waiting.

And the most common waiting state is an approval.

This is true in:

• finance
• operations
• HR
• compliance
• PE portfolio oversight

Approvals become bottlenecks for the same structural reasons.

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Reason 1: Approvals Are Not Modeled as Workflow Steps

Many teams treat approvals as “communication.”

So they happen in:

• email
• chat
• meetings

When approvals aren’t workflow steps, there is no reliable definition of:

• who owns the decision
• what context is required
• what happens after approve vs reject
• when escalation should trigger

The workflow doesn’t stop explicitly. It just waits invisibly.

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Reason 2: The Approver Doesn’t Have the Right Context

Approvals stall when approvers have to reconstruct context:

• what changed
• what policy applies
• what risk exists
• what the consequences are

The approval becomes a research task.

So the natural behavior is delay.

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Reason 3: There Is No Time Boundary

Without an explicit SLA, approvals compete with everything else.

No SLA means:

• no urgency
• no escalation
• no fallback approver

The workflow becomes hostage to inbox behavior.

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Reason 4: Exceptions Collapse into the Approval Queue

In many workflows, exceptions are not classified.

So everything unusual gets routed to “someone to approve.”

Over time:

• the approval queue becomes an exception queue
• the approver becomes the exception resolver
• cycle time becomes unpredictable

This is why approval bottlenecks grow as the business scales.

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What Reliable Organizations Do Differently

They treat approvals as first-class workflow steps.

That means:

• approvals have explicit triggers and conditions
• required context is attached automatically
• escalation paths exist before problems arise
• approvals are logged for audit and review
• exceptions are classified and routed intentionally

Approvals stop being invisible waiting. They become governed decisions.

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How This Connects to RoboHen

RoboHen treats human decisions as a core part of workflow design:

• approvals are structured steps
• escalation and routing are explicit
• every decision is recorded
• workflows remain reliable even when exceptions happen

Related pages

• Human-in-the-Loop
• The Hidden Cost of Email-Based Approvals More perspectives
• Insights