Most companies do not implode because people are incompetent. They implode because no one agrees on what they actually committed to deliver. Goals are fuzzy, dependencies are invisible, and accountability gets vaporized in layers of management PowerPoint. Collaborate by Contract (CBC) matters because it kills that illusion. It forces clarity before execution, replacing cheerleading and OKR theater with actual agreements.
Why Traditional Goal-Setting is Broken
- OKRs: Aspirational fluff disguised as execution discipline. Everyone stretches for the moon, then spends half the quarter retrofitting numbers so leadership can pretend progress happened.
- KPIs: A measurement fetish. Endless dashboards and charts, while no one remembers who was actually responsible for delivering the thing being measured.
- Agile Cargo Cults: Daily standups and burndown charts don't magically produce accountability. They produce theater: lots of motion, little progress.
CBC flips the script: no contract, no work. Execution starts when commitments are signed, not when the CEO gives a rousing speech about “changing the world.”
What CBC Fixes
- Ambiguity becomes explicit scope and deliverables.
- Finger-pointing becomes named ownership.
- Scope creep becomes formal renegotiation.
- Wishful thinking becomes realistic commitments defined upfront.
Scenario: Startup Chaos vs. CBC Discipline
In a typical startup, the founder announces: “We’ll launch an AI-powered platform in Q2!” Everyone nods, engineers dive in, and three months later the product is still duct tape and vaporware. Why? Because no one clarified dependencies (GPU budget, dataset, infra), deliverables (“AI-powered” means what exactly?), or success criteria.
Under CBC, that project never even starts until a contract is in place:
- Deliverable: A demo-ready prototype with specific features.
- Dependencies: Cloud GPU allocation, dataset licensing, integration with existing stack.
- Accountability: Product defines scope, engineering delivers prototype.
- Success Criteria: Demo to investors without crashing.
When things slip, you do not get a company-wide blame circus. You get a signed record of commitments and a clear decision: renegotiate or escalate.
Why This Matters Across Company Sizes
- Startups: CBC prevents founders from running on enthusiasm fumes while engineers drown in undefined priorities.
- Midsize Companies: CBC kills the cross-team blame game where marketing promises features that engineering never agreed to build.
- Enterprises: CBC cuts through the bureaucracy where ten committees “approve” a goal, but no single team is contractually responsible for delivering it.
Takeaway
CBC is not another “alignment tool.” It is execution discipline with teeth. Unlike OKRs and KPIs that track wishful thinking, CBC forces clarity and commitment before the first line of code is written.
