How many gates does a piece of content need to pass through before it gets published? If there are not enough people with approval permissions, things can pile up fast. If one gatekeeper is overtaxed, even smaller teams can struggle to get a small amount of content flowing through the pipeline.

SOLUTIONS

• Determine if the workflow is really needed. Is it meeting your needs, or is it just causing more pain? Is it really necessary? Is the workflow there because there is a low level of trust? Is the workflow there because of silly mistakes caused by confusing UX or lack of training? There might be a deeper issue.
• Separate pipelines and responsibilities. If everything is currently stuffed into one workflow, see if there is a way to separate them. This works best if content editor responsibilities fall cleanly along the lines of different content types, so you might want to look at shifting responsibilities before attempting. Workbench Access sometimes helps in these situations.