A piece of work goes out for review and comes back with fourteen comments.
Four of them contradict each other. Two are from someone who was never meant to be in the chain. One just says "can we make the logo bigger". The feedback is spread across email, a Slack thread, a marked-up PDF, and a meeting nobody minuted. Somewhere in there is a file called final_v3_FINAL_amends.
It might seem like you have an approval problem. Underneath, it is an undocumented workflow that happens to involve review and approval. The work is fine. The way it moves through people is what burns time and saps the will to continue.
Pointing an AI at the existing process will not solve it. The steps are not defined, the reviewers are not working with the rest of the team, and the workflow has taken on a life of its own. Automation laid over that just moves the chaos faster.
So define it. Once defined, it starts to flow something like this:
- Name a reviewer who owns the round.
- Pass the work through an automated check: brand, copy and layout rules.
- Bring all comments into one place, organise and consolidate, so contradictions are surfaced and resolved.
- Pass a list of amends back to the team.
- Iterate steps 3 and 4.
- Run final checks with legal, brand and leadership.
- Deliver.
The same flow every time, through the same roles, whoever is on the job. The fourteen comments still arrive. They just arrive once, in order, owned.
Get the process right and the tools have something to slot into. Get it wrong and you have automated the chaos.
Process is one of the five Dimensions the Diagnostic covers, alongside Mandate, People, Infrastructure and Governance. Review and approval is one of six standard flows in the Workflow Planner, which maps the sequence, the tools, and roughly what the stack costs.