# Outcome Contracting: Success Plans That Bind Both Sides

Most success plans are vendor to-do lists with the customer CC'd. The ones that work are *contracts about outcomes*: the customer's business goal, translated into measurable milestones, with obligations on BOTH sides and a named owner per line.

## From goal to milestone (the translation discipline)

Customers state goals as aspirations ("improve team efficiency"). The plan's job is the translation chain:
**Business goal** ("reduce report-building time") → **usage milestone that proves it** ("15 analysts building scheduled reports weekly by day 60") → **leading indicator** ("10 analysts onboarded by day 21"). Every milestone carries a number and a date, and traces upward to a goal the ECONOMIC BUYER stated — not one the vendor inferred. If you can't name which executive said the goal aloud, the plan is built on sand; go get the sentence.

## Mutual obligations or theatre

Every phase lists customer-owned lines with names: "IT completes SSO by [date] — owner: [name]" · "Team leads attend the enablement — owner: [name]". Two rules make this real:
- Get the plan *co-signed* (literally reviewed and agreed in a meeting, on the record) — an emailed plan nobody discussed binds nobody
- When a customer obligation slips, the dependent milestone dates move VISIBLY and the plan says so. Silent absorption of their slippage teaches them the dates are decorative — and makes the missed outcome your fault at renewal.

## The 30/60/90 shape (and what each proves)

- **30: value proven narrow** — ONE workflow, ONE team, working end-to-end. Resist breadth; a thin slice of real value beats wide configuration.
- **60: habit forming** — the workflow is weekly-rhythm, unprompted; the leading indicators of stickiness fire.
- **90: value provable upward** — the first ledger entry the champion can show their boss (formula included). This artifact IS the renewal motion, nine months early.

## Plan hygiene

Review cadence written in (monthly ops, quarterly exec) · every review starts with milestone deltas, not feelings · the plan is a living doc with a change log — a v1 plan untouched at day 90 is a tombstone, not a plan.
