The Approval Is Not a Decision: How Sign-Offs Create False Certainty

Organizations often treat approval as the end of a conversation. A business sponsor signs a requirement, a steering group endorses a design, or a process owner approves a change, and everyone moves forward assuming the important choices are settled. But approval can mean many different things: agreement with the goal, acceptance of the risk, acknowledgment of the wording, or simple permission to continue. When those meanings are confused, IT builds against apparent certainty while business leaders believe they have preserved flexibility. This episode examines the difference between reviewing, agreeing, deciding, and accepting consequences. Mirko Peters uses a generalized consulting example to show how a project can have abundant signatures yet lack a real decision on scope, trade-offs, ownership, or success criteria. Listeners will learn how to make approvals explicit, expose unresolved choices, and reduce rework without adding unnecessary bureaucracy. The episode closes with practical questions both business and IT can use before calling something approved.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/business-it-it-business--6867401/support.To continue the conversation, follow Mirko Peters on LinkedIn, where more insights and real-world examples are shared from both business and IT perspectives.