Most companies don’t fail because people aren’t smart enough. They fail because no one knows what was actually agreed to in the first place. Work starts with handshakes, half-baked “alignment” slides, or OKRs slapped on a Confluence page — and then everyone is shocked when the delivery falls apart. Framing CBC properly matters because it immediately kills the wiggle room. It says: no agreement, no work. Period.

Why CBC Exists

• Vague promises are the enemy of execution. OKRs and KPIs sound impressive but leave too much open to interpretation. “Grow user engagement” could mean ten different things to ten different people. CBC forces a contract: exactly what’s being done, by who, and how success will be judged.
• It enforces dual accountability. Leaders don’t just assign tasks; they own clarity. Operators don’t just receive marching orders; they own delivery. Both parties sign off, which means both parties are accountable.
• It scales down as easily as it scales up. Whether you’re leading one direct report or an entire org, CBC works because it’s built on agreements, not ceremonies.

Old Way vs. CBC

• OKRs/KPIs: Aspirational, flexible, and easily weaponized by politics. When things fail, everyone can point fingers at “shifting priorities” or “evolving market needs.”
• CBC: Concrete, committed, and enforceable. When things fail, you know whether the problem was mis-execution or mis-defined terms. No hiding behind jargon.

Example: Startup Chaos

A seed-stage startup has a CTO with three engineers. They run on “move fast and break things” energy. One engineer thinks “launch MVP” means a working mobile app, another thinks it means a landing page with a sign-up form. Both are technically “right,” but only one aligns with the founder’s expectations. With CBC, the “MVP” would have been defined in an agreement before work started — deliverables, success criteria, owner, dependencies. No wasted cycles, no mismatched expectations, no blaming “startup ambiguity.”

What CBC Really Frames

• Objective: Why this work matters, in plain English.
• Deliverables: Concrete outputs, not vague aspirations.
• Accountability: A named person, not a team acronym.
• Dependencies: Who or what this work relies on.
• Success Criteria: How we’ll know it’s done, in measurable terms.

The Takeaway

Framing CBC is about rejecting the industry’s addiction to vague goals and “performance theater.” Agreements come first, execution second. Everything else is noise.