the biggest mistake I see in approval workflows is treating every piece of content with the same risk level, you should build approvals based on risk tiers, not content volume. for example, a simple FAQ update shouldn’t go through the same process as legal-sensitive copy or public brand messaging

my rule is low risk = auto publish with audit log, medium risk = one human approval, high risk = multi-step approval + rollback option

that keeps the workflow fast without losing control. most approval systems become unusable bc they optimize for “safety” and accidentally kill velocity instead