From goals to tasks: how to break down the work
A goal gives work its direction, but it doesn’t tell anyone what to do on Monday morning. Here’s how to turn it into tasks with an owner, a sequence and realistic deadlines.
Processes · 4 min read
Approvals: designing a workflow that doesn’t get stuck
Clear thresholds, budget checks, delegation and escalation: how to build an approval workflow that is fast, traceable and independent of anyone’s memory.
Where requests get stuck
Anyone who works in a company knows the scene: a purchase request goes out by email, gets forwarded to one manager, then another, and after a few days nobody knows where it stands. The requester chases, the approver can’t find the message, and meanwhile the supplier waits.
In most cases the problem isn’t a lack of goodwill but the absence of a defined path. When it isn’t clear who needs to approve what, every request becomes a special case, and special cases are the ones that stall.
There is also a less visible but equally costly effect: when approvals are slow, people learn to work around them. Informal orders are placed in advance, expenses are split to stay below thresholds, and people ask for forgiveness rather than permission. A fast workflow is also a workflow that gets followed.
A fast workflow is also a workflow people actually follow.
Few steps, clear rules
The first principle of a good approval workflow is restraint. Every extra step lengthens lead times and dilutes accountability, because approvers know someone else will check after them. Before adding a level, ask what concrete risk it mitigates and whether that risk isn’t already covered by an earlier check.
The second principle is clear rules. Amount-based thresholds are the simplest tool: below a certain figure the department head approves, above it senior management steps in, and beyond a further threshold finance must sign off too. Rules like these can be explained in one sentence, applied without ambiguity and easily revised as the company grows.
Other criteria can count alongside the amount, such as spend category, cost center or supplier. What matters is that the criterion is objective and can be read from the request data, so the path can be determined automatically.
Budget checks at the right moment
A purchase request only makes sense if there is budget to cover it. Yet in many companies the check happens afterwards, once the order has gone out and finance discovers that the cost center has overshot. By then the conversation is inevitably harder.
Bringing the budget check into the workflow changes the dynamic. Approvers see right away how much is left on the relevant cost center and can decide with all the facts in front of them. If the request exceeds what is available, the workflow can add an extra step instead of grinding to a halt or leaving the decision to gut feeling.
The same goes for the information that accompanies the request. An attached quote, the reason for the expense and a reference to the project or job make it possible to decide without asking for clarification, which is one of the most common causes of delay. A well-designed form asks only for what is needed, but always asks for it.
Delegation, reminders and escalation
Even the best-designed workflow stalls if the approver is on vacation or snowed under. That is why you need three complementary mechanisms. Delegation lets people who are away name a substitute for a set period. Reminders nudge approvers about pending requests, so requesters don’t have to chase. Finally, escalation moves a request up a level when it has been stuck for longer than an agreed time.
These mechanisms only work if they are automatic. A delegation you have to remember to set up, or an escalation that depends on someone flagging it manually, ends up unused precisely when it is needed most.
- 01 Reminder to the approver
- 02 Delegation to a deputy
- 03 Escalation to the next level
- 04 Decision on record
Effortless traceability
Every approval should leave a trail: who approved, when, with what information on hand and, where relevant, with what comment. This isn’t just bureaucracy; it is about being able to reconstruct a decision months later, during an audit or simply when someone asks why that supplier was chosen.
In Task, approval workflows are configured with thresholds, approvers and delegation, and the budget check reads availability directly from Finance. Every request has a status visible to everyone involved, can be approved on mobile and keeps a complete history of decisions. The result is a process that is visible and, above all, doesn’t depend on anyone’s memory.
Before
- Requests by email
- Status unknown
- Budget checked after ordering
After
- Automatic route by threshold
- Status visible to all
- Budget read from Finance
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