Version 7 FINAL (2) CEO comments
The release was drafted on Monday. The client's marketing manager made changes on Tuesday. The product lead added a technical paragraph. The CEO wants his quote to sound less formal. Legal needs to see anything that mentions a partner company, and the partner company needs to approve their own quote. Each of them received a Word attachment, each edited a different version, and two of them replied to an older email thread.
By Thursday the account manager is merging tracked changes from four documents, not sure whether legal has seen the latest wording, and the launch is on Monday. She sends a chasing email to the whole chain, which prompts the marketing manager to make fresh changes to a paragraph legal already approved.
Why approval chains break
The people approving a release are busy and it is not their main job. The process makes it harder than it needs to be.
- Attachments by email mean every approver can edit a different copy.
- The order of approval is unwritten, so people approve too early or too late.
- Nobody can see who is holding the release right now.
- Changes after sign-off are not flagged, so earlier approvers do not see them.
- Partner and third-party quotes need their own sign-off that sits outside the client's own chain.
The cost of a slow sign-off
Stalled releases miss news moments and embargo slots booked with journalists. Last-minute changes introduce errors, like a quote approved in one form and published in another. Account managers spend hours chasing rather than selling in. And when something goes wrong, nobody can show who approved which wording.
How we build the approval route
- Each client has a route template: who approves releases, in what order, and which approvers are only needed for certain topics, such as legal for partner mentions.
- The release sits in one place, a Microsoft 365 or Google document, or our own editor, so there is only ever one current version.
- Each approver gets a link to the current version with a clear ask: approve, approve with comments, or request changes. No attachments.
- Parallel steps run together where order does not matter, so the product lead and legal can review at the same time.
- If text changes after someone has approved, they are told which part changed and asked to reconfirm only that part.
- Partner quotes go to the partner contact as a separate small approval, showing only their quote and its context.
- A board for the account team shows every release in progress, who is holding it and for how long, with gentle automatic reminders at intervals you set.
| Approver | Sees | Step |
|---|---|---|
| Marketing manager | Full release | First, sequential |
| Product lead | Full release | Parallel with legal |
| Legal | Full release, partner mentions highlighted | Parallel, only when partners are named |
| Partner contact | Their quote in context | Separate approval |
| CEO | Final version with change summary | Last |
Every approval is recorded with the exact text approved and the time, which gives the agency a clear record if a question comes up later.
Sign-off, the following week
The account manager uploads the draft and starts the route. Marketing approves on Tuesday with two comments. Product and legal review in parallel on Wednesday. The partner confirms their quote from a link. The CEO gets the final version with a one-page summary of what changed and approves on Thursday morning. When the marketing manager tries a late edit to an approved paragraph, legal is automatically asked to reconfirm that paragraph only.
The board shows the release moving the whole time, and the account manager spends Thursday selling in.
Check your own process
- Releases go to approvers as Word attachments.
- You merge tracked changes from several copies.
- Nobody knows who is holding a release until you chase.
- Approved text sometimes changes without earlier approvers knowing.
- Partner quotes are approved in a separate email thread.