Journey 5 · Looking back to 2016

Keeping work moving when the usual decision-maker is away

Temporary cover needs clear limits and dates. Review who may act during an absence, which decisions remain outside their authority and what happens when the delegation expires.

Retrospective · Written 8 October 2026

A familiar operational dependency

Our January 2016 article on taking a real vacation described a familiar problem: work waits because the person who normally approves it is away. Email forwarding may move the message, but it does not necessarily establish that the recipient has the authority to make the decision.

A handoff needs defined boundaries

A useful delegation identifies what may be decided, the relevant organisational scope and the period for which the arrangement applies. An acting supervisor might handle routine requests for a particular team without inheriting every responsibility of the absent manager. The arrangement should reflect what the organisation intends, rather than treating absence as permission to broaden access.

Availability is not authority

Choosing an available person is only one part of routing work. The process also needs to establish whether that person may act and whether the task has requirements they satisfy. Visibility of a request does not itself confer approval rights. A notification can prompt attention; the decision still belongs to someone acting within the organisation’s rules.

Design and test the exception

Before relying on delegated approvals, test normal work, temporary cover, expiry of the arrangement and cases outside its scope. Decide who should see an unresolved request and what happens if no eligible decision-maker is available. This turns an informal favour into a process that people can understand and maintain. The benefit is continuity with accountability.

Historical reference: Earlier StarGarden article (historical source). The date identifies the earlier writing, not the publication date of this retrospective.