Most frameworks collapse under the weight of their own ceremony. CBC is the opposite: it’s simple, almost boring, like agreeing to pay a contractor for remodeling your kitchen. Who’s doing what, when it’s done, and what happens if they screw it up. The simplicity is deceptive, because once you start demanding signed agreements before work begins, you’ll expose every crack in your company’s execution discipline. That discomfort isn’t failure—it’s the point.

At its core, three rules must hold no matter what type of organization you’re running:

1. Agreement and sign-offs before work begins
2. All involved parties must agree/negotiate and sign off
3. Agreement must define expectations and outcomes (who, what, when, where, why, how)

The details look different depending on whether you’re a startup running on caffeine and chaos, a midsize business drowning in cross-team confusion, or an enterprise buried under its own bureaucracy.

Startups: Containing the Chaos

Startups pride themselves on “moving fast,” which usually translates to “starting projects without knowing what the hell we’re actually building.” CBC forces clarity where chaos thrives:

• How it looks: Instead of “We’ll ship an MVP this quarter,” the CBC agreement states: “By June 30, Jane will deliver a working payments API that supports credit cards and PayPal. Success criteria: 200 transactions processed without manual intervention.”
• Why it matters: No more hand-wavy goals or vague “stretch targets.” Everyone knows who owns what, and investors finally see execution discipline instead of performance theater.
• Contrast with OKRs: OKRs would say “Increase payment success rate by 50%.” CBC says “Here’s who’s on the hook for making it happen and how we’ll know it’s done.”

Scenario: A two-person founding team agrees that one founder handles fundraising while the other delivers the product milestone. With CBC, both sides sign off on what “done” means. When the product isn’t ready on June 30, there’s no “we tried our best”—just a missed agreement, visible and undeniable.

Midsize Businesses: Killing the Misalignment

Midsize companies have just enough structure to create bureaucracy but not enough to keep teams aligned. CBC cuts through the fog:

• How it looks: A product team signs an agreement with the infrastructure team for database scaling. Objective: support 1 million new users by end of quarter. Deliverables: infra team provisions new cluster, product team updates configs. Dependencies: DBA approval, budget sign-off.
• Why it matters: Everyone can see where failure will happen before it happens. No more “but we thought infra was handling that.”
• Contrast with KPIs: A KPI might track uptime percentage. CBC forces teams to lock in ownership and deadlines, not just chase metrics.

Scenario: A SaaS company expanding internationally. Marketing wants a launch in Germany. Product wants new localization. Infra needs new servers. Instead of three teams pointing fingers at each other after the launch fails, CBC ensures each has a signed agreement tied to the same outcome. If Germany doesn’t launch, the agreements make it obvious who dropped the ball.

Enterprises: Piercing the Bureaucracy

Enterprises love paperwork but hate accountability. CBC weaponizes formality against bureaucracy by making every “yes” a binding contract:

• How it looks: A global bank’s security team signs off on enabling a new feature in the mobile app. Agreement defines: scope (enable biometric login), deadline (end of Q2), dependencies (vendor integration), success criteria (95% of iOS/Android users pass biometric auth).
• Why it matters: Instead of endless committees and risk reviews, work doesn’t even begin until the agreement is signed. The paper trail creates accountability, not cover-your-ass excuses.
• Contrast with enterprise OKRs: OKRs might say “Improve mobile security.” CBC nails down what, who, and by when—removing the wiggle room that lets projects drift into oblivion.

Scenario: An enterprise with ten cross-functional teams tied to a regulatory audit. CBC forces each department (compliance, IT, product, vendor) to sign agreements defining their piece of the puzzle. When the regulator arrives, there’s no “lost in translation”—just visible agreements showing who owns what.

The CBC Advantage

CBC doesn’t eliminate friction—it weaponizes it. The arguments, delays, and exposed gaps are proof that you’re finally running on execution discipline, not optimism or politics. OKRs and KPIs make people feel aligned. CBC makes people prove it, on paper, before they start typing a single line of code.

Takeaway: If you’re serious about outcomes, stop pretending vague goals are execution. CBC puts names, dates, and deliverables in writing—and that’s the only alignment that actually matters.