Definition
Review that produces approvals at a rate and speed incompatible with actual scrutiny, usually because the reviewer lacks time, information, authority, or permission to disagree. The artifact of review exists; the control does not.
It matters because rubber-stamp review reads as compliance in every audit that counts approvals rather than reversals. It is the failure meaningful control tests for and the one an intervention specification is written to prevent.
PatternsVisibility
Tests that show it is in place
- Median review time is reported alongside approval rate for every review queue.
- A reviewer can point to a recent case they altered or refused.
- Review capacity is compared against decision volume rather than assumed adequate.
Evidence to keep
- Artifact: Review queue statistics showing volume, median review time, and outcome distribution.
- Behavior: A review queue throttled because time per case fell below the scrutiny floor.
- Metric: Approval rate and median seconds per review, reported together.
- Threshold: Investigate any queue with approval rate above 98% and median review under 30 seconds.
References
- Meaningful control eval · Eval