by Youssef Elbeqqal · October 19, 2026
Why Approvals Stall Longest on the Smallest Deliverables
TL;DR
C. Northcote Parkinson observed a committee approve an entire nuclear power plant with barely a comment, then spend disproportionate time debating the materials for a bicycle shed, because small details are easier to have an opinion on than complex ones. The same pattern shows up in agency approvals: strategy decks clear fast, captions and color choices stall, and most approval processes are built backwards, adding review rounds to the big deliverables while leaving small ones informal.
C. Northcote Parkinson watched a committee approve an entire nuclear power plant with barely a comment, then spend a disproportionate share of the meeting arguing about the materials for a bicycle shed. The plant was the actual decision, the shed was trivial, and the shed got the debate. Parkinson's law of triviality names the reason: people focus on smaller details because they're easier to understand than the complex ones, so everyone in the room has an opinion worth voicing.
Why this maps directly onto agency approvals
A full campaign strategy usually clears fast, because most people on the client side trust the agency's expertise on strategy and don't feel qualified to argue with it. A one-line social caption or a button color gets three rounds of conflicting notes, because everyone has a genuine opinion about wording and color in a way they don't about media mix or audience targeting. The deliverable that matters least to the outcome is the one every stakeholder feels entitled to weigh in on.
Where the approval process usually protects the wrong thing
Most agencies build review rigor around the big deliverable: extra sign-off steps, multiple internal passes, a formal presentation for the strategy doc. The small stuff gets sent informally, "just approve this real quick," on the assumption it won't need much. That's backwards. Bikeshedding means the small item is exactly where the process needs structure: one point of contact and a defined feedback window, not an open thread where every stakeholder gets an equal, unbounded say on the font.
What that structure actually looks like
The fix isn't fewer opinions, people are allowed to have one. It's a defined window and a single point of consolidation, the same fix already covered for scattered client feedback: one thread, one deadline, one person reconciling the notes, so three stakeholders debating a caption doesn't quietly cost the same turnaround time as the strategy review it was supposed to be faster than.
Where this fits into approvals overall
This is the specific mechanism behind why approval bottlenecks cost agencies billable hours: the hours don't disappear on the big, important calls, they disappear on the small ones that felt too minor to need a process. See how workflow design puts structure around the deliverables that actually stall, not just the ones that look like they should.