The order waiting for one more signature
You run a growing service business. A manager must decide whether a routine customer discount needs your signature. Requiring approval feels prudent: lower prices can reduce margin. Yet an unnecessary queue can hold up a paying customer's order and consume the founder's attention.
The assumption to test is specific: every discount becomes a better decision when the founder approves it. The useful alternative is bounded authority, with exceptions sent for review.
Follow one hypothetical order
Suppose a customer orders a standard delivery service priced at $500. All figures here are illustrative assumptions, not reported results. The order record shows direct delivery cost of $350 and a requested discount of $20. Your written rule permits managers to approve discounts when the price after discount exceeds direct cost by at least $100 and delivery commitments stay unchanged.
Before action, approval_status is pending and the order waits. The manager verifies the cost and delivery terms, records the rule used, and changes approval_status to approved. The customer pays $480; scheduling can proceed. The record now shows a $130 contribution before overhead, not net profit. Approval itself never proves that cash arrived.
What the signature cannot add
Here the founder receives the same fields and applies the same rule. Adding a signature changes who authorises the decision, but supplies no missing information. The waiting step persists because authority is centralised, even though the decision is already specified.
Delegation works like a boundary: requests inside it proceed; requests outside it stop for review. It does not mean every request deserves acceptance.
Check the boundary before removing the queue
Inspect the order's price, current direct cost and delivery terms. Compare them with the written rule, then inspect the approval log. A missing cost, an unrecorded rule or a changed commitment fails the check. Hold the order and obtain review.
Now consider an explicitly hypothetical boundary case: the customer also requests an unpriced weekend delivery. Its cost is unknown. Require founder review and a cost estimate before accepting it; the routine discount rule no longer settles the decision.