When aI drafts are marked ready despite open questions, another broad rewrite or another batch of output may leave the underlying problem intact. Diagnose the relevant failure before changing the whole process.
Find the likely cause
Status labels reflect completion of generation rather than readiness.
Treat this as an explanation to verify against the actual work. Look at the input, the relevant decision, and the final result together. If the evidence does not support this diagnosis, investigate the mismatch before applying a convenient but unrelated fix.
Make the targeted correction
Define what must be true before each stage transition.
A reliable handoff tells the next person what is complete, what remains uncertain, and what action is required.
Check that the repair worked
Reject handoffs missing required evidence or decisions.
Repeat the check on the final version that the reader or customer will encounter. An approved draft, a preview, and a published result can differ; the acceptance decision should concern the version people actually use.
Prevent the next related failure
A separate issue to watch for is this: two people perform the same review. Assign factual, structural, and publication checks to named roles.
Monitor the useful outcome
Track returned handoffs, waiting time, and missing information discovered downstream.
Keep a short record of the original symptom, the evidence behind the diagnosis, and the result of the acceptance check. That record makes the solution reusable when the same condition appears again, without assuming that every superficially similar problem has the same cause.