The Review Queue Is The Company

# The Review Queue Is The Company

If you want to understand how a company really works, study its review queues.

Look at what lands there, how long it sits, who clears it, and which items bounce between people without closure. That is the practical operating model, regardless of what the org chart says.

## Why queues matter in AI systems

Agentic tooling increases the importance of review because more work arrives pre-processed. The temptation is to treat review as a simple yes-or-no checkpoint. In practice, it becomes the place where judgment, accountability, and throughput collide.

## What good queues reveal

- the level of trust in upstream automation
- whether ownership is crisp
- whether exceptions are rare or structural

## What bad queues create

Hidden queues create hidden companies. Work waits in inboxes, DMs, and side channels, while dashboards insist everything is fine.

## Strong systems expose the queue

The healthier path is explicit state, visible assignment, and measurable time-to-resolution. That is how you stop review from becoming a black box.