The "approval paralysis" thing happens at a lot of companies, large and small, not just GiantTech. It creeps up on you slowly: 1. A big problem happens that gains the attention of leadership. 2. The problem is root-caused to some risky thing an employee did trying to accomplish XYZ. 3. To correct this, a
process is put in place that must be followed when one wants to do XYZ, and (critically) gatekeepers are anointed who must approve the activity. 4. These gatekeepers are inevitably senior already-busy people who become bottlenecks. Now we can't do this critical thing without hounding approvers. 5. Some other big problem happens and the above cycle starts all over again.
Before you know it, every even slightly risky task you need to do through the course of your job requires the blessing of approvers who are well-intentioned, but all so overloaded they don't even answer their E-mail or chats. They sometimes need to be physically grabbed in the hallway in order to unblock your project. Progress grinds to a halt and it still has not stopped production problems--just those particular classes of problems that the approval processes caught.
EDIT: Not sure what the right solution is, but it must be one that doesn't rely on a particular overloaded human doing something. Maybe an automated approval system that produces a paper trail (to help with postmortem and corrective action later) and ensuring all changes can be rolled back effortlessly. Easier said than done, obviously.
Before you know it, every even slightly risky task you need to do through the course of your job requires the blessing of approvers who are well-intentioned, but all so overloaded they don't even answer their E-mail or chats. They sometimes need to be physically grabbed in the hallway in order to unblock your project. Progress grinds to a halt and it still has not stopped production problems--just those particular classes of problems that the approval processes caught.
EDIT: Not sure what the right solution is, but it must be one that doesn't rely on a particular overloaded human doing something. Maybe an automated approval system that produces a paper trail (to help with postmortem and corrective action later) and ensuring all changes can be rolled back effortlessly. Easier said than done, obviously.