Editorial Workflow – Definition

The sequence of steps content passes through from draft to publication — creation, review, approval, scheduling, and release.

A well-designed editorial workflow assigns clear roles to each step and adapts its rigor to content criticality, so trivial changes don't get stuck in the same process as highly sensitive ones. Workflow design also needs to account for content that doesn't cleanly fit a single review stage — a translated version of an already-approved piece arguably needs a lighter-weight approval rather than repeating the full original review, since the substantive decisions were already made. Workflows that force every derivative of already-approved content through an identical, full-weight review tend to create bottlenecks disproportionate to the actual risk being reviewed.