Approval Workflow: Key Elements and Optimization Tips
No matter the size of your organization, one thing you will surely face is getting approval for new ideas and initiatives. This comes in various forms – changing suppliers, introducing a new product, or simply deciding to find a new team member. And the bigger the company, the longer the approval workflow you will have to deal with.
In some cases, just asking your direct manager will grant you what is necessary. In other cases, it will take weeks to get all the information and confirmation from different departments. So how should you manage approvals within your organization?
Let’s explore the practice and best optimization tips from the experts.
What is an approval workflow?
Approval workflow is a standardized process for getting approval within your organization. This includes tasks, documents, resources, products, and other things you may need to get confirmation for.
The main goal of the approval workflow is to reduce confusion about the process and to speed it up. This is achieved by providing a clear set of steps everyone should follow and eliminating communication lags with approval workflow software. Thus providing a clear standard that even the newest team members can pick up quickly.
The approval process workflow goals will differ depending on the team you work on. A sales team, for example, will have more requests related to clients, while the development team will be more focused on internal resources.
Having said that, all of the teams will encounter similar roadblocks and delays if the workflow is not optimized.
- An unclear process will affect the approval workflow to the greatest extent. Since your team will have to research what should be done before they can even begin.
- Long waiting times are another one of the most commonly mentioned issues. Prolonging the approval process and sometimes rendering the initiative dead.
- Complicated schedule matching is mentioned quite a bit. Especially for teams working remotely and from different locations.
- Lastly, miscommunication will extend the workflow as there will be multiple back and forths before the goal is reached.
So, optimizing your approval process will require a good understanding of what works and ensuring those elements are implemented effectively.
Approval workflow benefits
There are several benefits to having structured approval workflows within your company. Here are some of the most commonly mentioned.
Fewer bottlenecks and improved efficiency
A structured process allows for faster turnaround and fewer uncertainties. Thus, moving on to the implementation phase in less time.
Additionally, clear and concise documentation that outlines each step of the approval process can empower team members to know exactly what is required of them, thereby improving adherence to timelines and increasing overall efficiency.
David Rubie-Todd
Consistency and fewer risks
With a workflow, you also eliminate the guessing game for quality. Predefined rules give you a standard that can be expected each time.
One tip that’s made a huge difference for us is implementing a step-by-step approval checklist. This checklist not only outlines each stage of the process but also designates who needs to sign off at each point. By doing this, we ensure that nothing falls through the cracks and everyone knows exactly what’s required of them.
JD Lloyd
Better compliance
Approval workflow also ensures you meet the requirements. Be that internal rules or legal obligations, that are included in the workflow.
Reduced costs
A standardized process also means there is less waste of resources. This includes both – time spent on the requests as well as money spent on requests that should have been denied.
Established ownership and improved collaboration
Approval workflow gives accountability and ownership of the request to the team members. Making them feel involved in the process and having a say over what is moved forward.
Our approval workflow succeeds because it prioritizes clarity and accountability at each stage. We use a centralized project management tool where every task has a designated person responsible, a deadline, and a checklist of approval criteria. This transparency ensures that everyone knows what’s expected and prevents bottlenecks.
Shane McEvoy
Approval workflow process elements
Since we touched on having the right elements in your process, let’s see which of them are found in an approval workflow.
- Request – an initial idea or request for resources to be approved.
- Task List – breaks down the request into more specific steps that have to be performed.
- Submitter/Requester – a person who initiates the request to be approved.
- Permission Levels – define what roles and approval rights each team member has.
- Approvers – team members or other employees who have to approve the requests.
- Approval conditions – clear rules on how to evaluate and when to deny requests.
- Timelines – set expectations for how long each approval stage should take.
- Notifications – allow the approvers and requesters to be kept in the loop on what is happening in the approval workflow.
- Reporting and analysis – helps understand the average approval times and points of improvement.
The above-mentioned elements are used to structure approval workflows. They are universal to all teams, while the process itself differs.
Now that we have covered the basics, here is how to set up the workflow.
How to create an approval workflow?
As mentioned above, an approval workflow is combined out of a set of steps that must be completed to evaluate the request. As such, when setting up or optimizing your workflow, you should consider several things.
Here is a one-pager summary for easy sharing.
1. How will the request be submitted?
The very first thing the requester will have to do is submit their request. To do so, they will have to know:
- In what form that should be written?
- What it should include?
- Where to submit it?
Aim to define this in your SOPs and make the document accessible to everyone on the team. This way, you will save time when submitting the request as it will be clear what should be done. Also when evaluating the request, all the necessary information will be included already.
Teams often use their task management software to house such documents. Making them easy to find.
2. How should the request be reviewed?
Once the request is submitted, the approval begins. For it to go smoothly, the approval process should be thought out step by step. Think of:
- Who should take the approver role?
- What steps are required for each inquiry?
- Is the approval process step-by-step or can multiple actions be taken simultaneously?
- Who is responsible for taking the request through those steps?
By answering the questions above, you will have to consider the process from multiple angles. This will also allow you to evaluate different approval requests that are common within the company. Thus preparing you for various scenarios.
To track the process, consider using approval workflow software or setting up a Kanban board in your system to track the current status of each request.
3. What criteria should be met for approval?
After thinking about the steps of your process, move on to defining clear criteria that each request should meet for approval. Depending on your process, this may be very explicit, or quite flexible. Thus giving a range for the approver to work with.
If you are dealing with several types of requests, the criteria should be individually matched for each. This way, you will not sacrifice quality to make the criteria fit every type.
Having this defined list will provide clear arguments on why the request was approved or denied. It will also make the process more transparent.
Integrating a clear decision matrix is one of the biggest game-changers in our approval workflow. We found our projects stalled due to too many cooks in the kitchen, and it wasn’t clear who had the final say. By establishing specific decision roles—who needs to be informed, who gives input, and who has approval authority—we cut out unnecessary back-and-forths and sped up the entire process.
Vaibhav Kakkar
4. Who makes the final decision?
Think about who makes the final decision for each request and closes it. If that is up to the requester or the approver, make sure that is known to them. So that they can move the request to implementation.
5. How will you improve?
Lastly, consider how will you review this workflow for improvement. After the initial setup, you will surely find what can be tweaked. So, having space to discuss and implement those tweaks is important.
Think Agile retrospective where you can meet and share experiences with the whole team.
By sharing experiences, we identified bottlenecks and reworked the flow. Monthly data and feedback were assessed to get a feel for where we could do better and how we could streamline the flow to achieve the smoothest result. It was very much a trial-and-error process until we had a defined and transparent journey mapped out. We found that by working collaboratively to find the best solution, we produced better results than working with a specialist.
Geoffrey Bourne
By considering these 5 questions, you will surely cover all the bases for the building of your workflow. Now let’s look at some examples of the approval process workflow.
Examples of approval process workflow
You may already have a good idea of what types of requests require approval within your organization. Here are some examples you may also want to consider.
- Approval for a new project. Entails a request for a new initiative within the company.
- Content approval. Talks about getting approval on marketing materials, website content, and the usage of employee pictures.
- Approval for change requests. Covers the changes required within the product or system the company develops.
- Budget approval. Covers the available budget for a certain period.
- Approval for a purchase. This entails tools and other resources needed for the job function.
- Approval for an expense. Similar to the previous one, but asks for reimbursement of employees for the expenses they had.
- Approval for a sales quote. Specifies if a certain purchase price can be confirmed for a new client.
- Approval for time off. Deals with vacation time, sick leave, and other situations when employees request time off.
There are multiple types of approvals within any organization. This list above is just some of the most commonly mentioned processes.
While it may seem daunting to cover everything, having those workflows set up will aid you in the long run.
Approval workflow risks
One last thing to think about when setting up is the risks you may face within the process. While these are often very small, they may still cause a delay and waste time.
To avoid this, ensure everyone involved has access to the necessary documents, and forms, and is notified of new requests or actions. With agency project management software that can be done by adding all involved parties as watchers to the requested task.
Also, if you need to change the request in the middle of the process, make sure to inform the approver or start the request from the beginning to ensure all criteria are met. Lastly, if a mistake was made in any step, reevaluate as soon as you see it. This will allow us to evaluate the criteria correctly and avoid issues in the future.
Approval workflow software
Looking to build your approval workflow? I suggest looking into approval workflow software like Teamhood. It will hold all of your documentation in one place and give you a visual interface to track the progress of each request.
You can learn about different types of such tools in the following post.