Decide what never goes to a customer unchecked.
Who decides, who reviews, and who is accountable?
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In a small business the owner is usually the entire governance structure. That makes it simpler and more fragile: the rules must survive a busy week, and they must work when someone else is covering.
- Write rules that survive a busy week
A safeguard that only holds when you are unhurried is not a safeguard.
- Commitments are the boundary
Prices, dates and availability are promises. They need confirmation, not plausible drafting.
- Write it down for whoever covers
Governance you hold only in your head fails the first day you are away.
Priya is comfortable reviewing quotes herself. During a busy week, a part-time assistant sends a drafted quote directly to a customer. It contains a delivery date that was never confirmed with the supplier.
Priya and every example here are prepared learning material, not a real case or an AI-generated result.
My governance outline
- List what must be confirmed
Write the fields that can never be drafted without verification — price, availability, delivery date, quantities.
- Decide who may send
State who can send customer-facing output and what they must check first.
- Make unconfirmed visible
Require drafts to mark unconfirmed values explicitly rather than filling them plausibly.
- Plan the correction
Decide how a wrong quote is corrected with a customer, and who may do it.
An unconfirmed date reached a customer.
The customer has planned around the delivery date. The supplier has not confirmed it.
What is the governance lesson?
Every option has an explanation. Open as many as you like — nothing is recorded or scored.
Next: Guide people through the change
How do we bring people with us?