The Pre-Commitment Test
A verbal yes is a response to enthusiasm. Run each proposed goal through eight written questions before the quarter starts, and discover which commitments are real.
The Promise
A verbal yes is a response to enthusiasm. Run each proposed goal through eight written questions before the quarter starts, and discover which commitments are real and which are enthusiasm waiting to meet reality.
How It Works
- Answer eight questions in writing, one concrete sentence each. Purpose, Importance, Ideal Outcome, Best Result, Worst Result, Success Criteria, Necessary Conditions, and Wanted. If you can't write a concrete sentence, stop. That's data.
- Hold the line at Questions 1 through 3. If Purpose, Importance, and Ideal Outcome can't be answered with specificity, the goal isn't ready to organize a quarter around.
- Price the worst result before committing. Write the concrete cost of the time, money, and attention this goal consumes whether it succeeds or fails.
In Practice
The leverage isn't in the questions; it's in writing the answers. In conversation, vague answers travel fast. On paper, they stay visible and you can't pace past them. Most goals die on Question 3, not because success is undefined in the abstract, but because no two people can write the same description of it. That failure is information arriving at the lowest possible cost. The test is a clarity tool, not a decision-maker, and it runs in the Load phase before any Key Result gets written.