Risk-tiering (approvals)

Risk-tiering is the Approval Loop fix recipe's step that turns an approval audit from a list into a decision. Once every approval gate the work touches is on the wall, each one is tiered: Tier 1 exists for genuine compliance, safety, or fiduciary risk; Tier 2 exists for blame insurance — a manager wants the second signature so the responsibility is shared; Tier 3 exists out of habit, often left over from a structure that has since changed.

The fix recipe is to remove or collapse Tier 3 gates first, redesign Tier 2 gates around the actual risk they catch (which is usually narrower than the gate itself), and leave Tier 1 alone. Most teams find that more than half of the gates the work touches are Tier 2 or Tier 3.

Risk-tiering gives the room a shared language for distinguishing approvals that protect customers from approvals that protect careers, without making either group wrong.