Lesson 1 of 3 · 8 min
Governance without gatekeeping
How to get consistency without becoming the approval queue.
The instinct when video production opens up to a team is to add approval steps. That works until volume goes up, at which point the approver becomes the bottleneck and people route around them.
Constrain the decisions, not the people
Most brand inconsistency comes from a handful of decisions being made repeatedly by different people: logo placement, caption style, intro length, music, cursor treatment. Lock those in a brand kit and the variance disappears without anyone needing permission.
Approve by surface, not by asset
Require review for things that go on the marketing site or into a paid campaign. Do not require review for help-center content or sales leave-behinds. The risk profiles are entirely different and treating them the same guarantees the queue backs up.
| Surface | Review | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| Homepage, pricing, campaigns | Required | High traffic, high cost to be wrong |
| Feature and docs pages | Spot check | Moderate traffic, easy to fix |
| Help center | None | Volume matters more than polish |
| Sales leave-behinds | None | Reps own their own credibility |
| Internal enablement | None | Audience will tell you if it is bad |