Tool 2 of 32 · about an hour
Success/Failure Definition
One sentence each, agreed by the people who deliver them. The failure sentence matters more, because undefined failure means nothing is ever officially off track.
At intake, agreed by the people who have to deliver the sentences, not drafted by leadership alone.
What it is for
To put success and failure in one sentence each, with a named horizon, so a stranger looking at the numbers could say whether either happened.
The failure it catches
Failure is never defined, so nothing is ever officially off track, so nothing gets corrected. The company discovers it failed at the finish line, which is the one place the definition is useless.
Why it works
A failure line that a stranger can check at a horizon the sentence itself names makes off track a fact instead of a feeling. Correction can start before anyone is standing at the finish line.
How to run it
- Write one sentence for success and one for failure. Each sentence names its own horizon, a date or an event.
- The people who have to deliver those sentences agree them. Leadership drafting alone produces definitions the deliverers never owned.
- Test each sentence: could a stranger look at the numbers at the horizon the sentence names and say whether it happened.
- A sentence that names no horizon fails the test before it starts. Ask for the missing date or event on the spot.
- If the measurement does not exist yet, building it becomes a dated task with an owner.
- A failure sentence containing feels, probably, or a condition outside the company's control fails. Rephrase it as a number, a date, or an event.
How to read the result
Pass or fail on the stranger test, checked at the sentence's named horizon. Connect the sentences to the baseline vitals so a success line set trivially low cannot pass and still lie.
How to run it well
- The failure sentence matters more than the success one. Spend the time there.
- Write the answers word for word. Do not paraphrase them into something cleaner than what was agreed.
Where it breaks
- A success sentence set trivially low passes the stranger test and still lies.
- A sentence that only becomes checkable at the finish line has not defined failure in time to act.
What would prove it wrong
A passing failure sentence that still produced we did not see it coming at a checkpoint would mean the stranger test is too weak.
What we watch
Whether a sentence that passed the stranger test still left the company unsurprised-too-late at the first checkpoint.
Ask yourself
- Does your failure sentence name a date or an event a stranger could check?
- Could someone who does not work here look at your numbers at that horizon and say whether failure happened?
- Does the failure sentence contain feels, probably, or something outside your control?
- Who agreed the sentences: the people who have to deliver them, or only leadership?
- If the measurement does not exist yet, who owns building it, and by when?
Fed by: One-Paragraph Answer
Feeds: Decision Contract, Savability Test